Deliver Us From Evil
by Dixie Darlin
Summary: Part 3 of 3.  One by one, strange accidents take place around Hazzard resulting in a path of grief, fear, and even death...
1. Up In Flames

**A/N: As promised, here is the last story in my trilogy. This one's a tear-jerker, trust me. Might want a box of tissues for some parts, 'cause I sure did at some parts :( I don't know when I'll get the next chapter up, it probaby won't be until next week b/c I'm overloaded with doctor appointments and class schedules, aauugghh!**

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**Deliver Us From Evil**

_**Prologue**_

"_Jailbreak! Jailbreak!" the guards were shouting up and down the hallways of Bonner State Prison. Armed officers went running about to secure the area. How the prisoners had managed to escape was beyond them, but they intended to find out as soon as they were back behind bars._

"_Out front!" someone yelled from the outside. "They're gettin' away in a dark Lincoln!"_

_Guards and officers scurried towards the outside windows, aiming and shooting out into the night in attempts to blow out the tires of the Lincoln. They missed however, and the car went plowing through the fence surrounding the prison base, escaping into the dark._

"_Call all the stations in Georgia! Tell 'em we got potentially dangerous criminals on the loose!" a seargant ordered._

**Chapter One: Up in Flames**

**Balladeer: Welcome back to Hazzard, folks! Been exactly a year since y'all dropped in an' I'm sure y'all miss all our friends here. Y'all are all just in time to attend little Chelsea Duke's first birthday party—that would be Bo an' Rachel's young'un in case y'all don't recall. We're at Bo's house right now, in case you're wonderin'. Ain't Chelsea cute?**

Little Chelsea was having a squirming fit as she sat in Bo's lap. The blonde-haired boy was bouncing her on his knee trying to get her calmed down. Rachel finally swooped her up in her arms and carried her in the kitchen to see if she wanted a cup of apple juice.

"Joys of parenthood, eh Bo?" Luke asked as he sat with his wife Ali on the couch. Ali and Rachel were sisters, so that made Bo and Luke not only just cousins, but cousins-in-law as well.

"Don't be so cocky," Bo grinned, nodding at Ali. "It'll be your turn pretty soon."

Ali was eight months along with her and Luke's first child, and neither could wait for it to be born. She rubbed her swollen belly and felt the baby kick.

"Soccer player," she said with a smile. "Definite soccer player."

"How do you know that? It might be pretendin' it's a race-car driver an' playin' like it's puttin' the pedal to the metal," Luke grinned, rubbing her belly as well.

"Just what we need around here," Uncle Jesse mumbled good-naturedly from the recliner.

"Yeah, a new generation of hot pursuit material, kheekhee!" Rosco had to add, getting the elbow from his wife Eve was sitting curled up next to hi m on the sofa. He gave her a feigned hurt look and she patted him on the face with a lopsided smile on her face to show she didn't mean it. Eve was Ali and Rachel's older sister, so that explains why Rosco was there.

"That would be _Bo's _kid, not mine," Luke chuckled.

Rachel came back to the living room with Chelsea, who was walking and sucking on her sippy cup full of juice. The little brown-haired girl with pigtails made a beeline for Bo and crawled back into his lap. Ali smiled and laid her head on Luke's shoulder. She couldn't wait to be a mom like Rachel.

"I wonder what's holdin' up Daisy an' Enos?" Jesse asked no one in particular. "They shoulda been here by now."

"You want me an' Bo to go look for 'em?" Luke asked, running a hand through Ali's still boyshort hair.

"Naw, I'll do it," Jesse said, getting up from his seat.

"I'll go with ya, Uncle Jesse," Rachel told him. "I forgot to pick up Chelsea some more juice. That's all she's got left, what she's drinkin' right now."

"No, I'll go, Rach. You stay here," Bo insisted, but Rachel gave him a look that implied that she _needed _to go so she could have a break from everybody. "Yes, ma'am," he told her, as if she had just ordered him to stay seated where he was.

**Balladeer: She's got him trained purdy good, don't she?**

Jesse grabbed his coat and Rachel's too to hand to her. "If we don't pass 'em anytime soon, we'll call in on the CB," he told them as they closed the front door.

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"There they are!" Rachel pointed out the window at the sight of Enos's truck stopped on the side of the road. They had gotten a flat tire and Daisy was hard at work putting the spare tire on, Enos handing her appropriate tools. She gave them a "okay" sign with her fingers to show that they were all right.

Jesse and Rachel passed the couple, all four waving at each other. Jesse sighed with relief. "Well, at least we know they're on their way," he said, continuing in the direction he was heading so Rachel could get Chelsea's apple juice from town.

About ten minutes later, they came to a curve in the road going left. Jesse put on the brakes to slow down at the sharp turn but he suddenly realized that something was terribly wrong. The brakes weren't working. He couldn't slow down.

**Balladeer: Uh-oh, this ain't lookin' too good . . . **

"Rachel, ya might wanna hang on to somethin'," he warned her, keeping a tight grip on the steering wheel. "My brakes are out!"

The girl held on to the door grip and shut her eyes as Jesse tried to swerve to keep the truck on the road as they attempted to make the turn. If they failed to turn, they would go over the cliff that the road was made to bypass. Jesse tried the brakes again but nothing was happening. The truck went out of control and skidded as it changed its direction, turning over on its side. Rolling now, the truck went tumbling over the edge of the cliff, Jesse and Rachel trapped inside. The truck finally landed at the bottom—a loud BOOM was heard and flames burst to life . . .

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Daisy and Enos arrived at Bo's house at last, getting a comical round of applause from everybody. Daisy went straight over to Chelsea who was still sitting in Bo's lap and "stole" her away for a few minutes.

"Y'all see Uncle Jesse and Rachel on the way up?" Bo asked as they sat down next to Luke and Ali.

"Yeah, we passed 'em," Daisy answered, playing with Chelsea's pigtails. "About fifteen minutes ago."

"They're probably just gettin' to town then," Luke noted. "They'll call in when they get close to the house."

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Twenty more minutes passed by. Jesse and Rachel should have been back by now, and everybody knew it. Everybody was starting to get worried that something might have happened to them. Luke nodded at Bo to come with him outside so they could use the CB in the General Lee, which had been driven by Luke in order to keep the engine from dying due to non-use.

"Lost Sheep to Shepherd, come in Shepherd," Luke called out, using the appropriate handles. He switched off and listened for a response, but he didn't get one. "Lost Sheep to Shepherd, ya there?"

Bo was getting antsy. "Maybe we should go look for 'em, Luke. They might be in trouble."

Luke didn't want to agree that the two might be hurt somehow, but he did agree they should go look for them. "You stay put, Bo. Chelsea might have a cow if you're not here. Get Rosco out here, we'll go in his patrol car."

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Rosco and Luke were driving down the road in the squad car, going slow enough to glance through the surrounding trees to see if maybe they'd gone off the road. Luke was starting to get aggravated.

"Try the radio again," Rosco suggested, hoping nothing major had happened.

Luke grabbed the mike. "Lost Sheep to Shepherd, where _are _you? Is everything okay?" Still no response. Luke tossed the equipment, and for once Rosco didn't reprimand him for abusing county property. "I don't get it. It ain't like him not to answer. He knows how it feels when _we _don't answer."

"They probably stopped to talk to someone, Luke," Rosco said calmly, trying to convince himself as well. Something didn't feel right about this. His cop instincts were telling him that something was majorly wrong here.

The two men looked up ahead and saw where the road turned to go past the cliff up ahead. Luke got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Rosco, you see what I see?"

Rosco squinted, using his hand to shield the sun from his eyes. "Not really."

"Looks like someone went crashing through those bushes," Luke said in a shaky voice. "An' didn't stop at the cliff . . . stop the car!"

The sheriff hadn't even pulled off the road when the young man jumped out and went tearing out down the road to where the curve came close to the cliff. Rosco got tangled up in his seat belt and started calling for Luke to slow down, but Luke wasn't listening. His heart beat in his ears and he slows himself down at the edge of the cliff. He looked down and saw what he feared he would see. Jesse's truck—totaled. Fire leaped form the engine and smoke circled above it. There was no way anyone could have survived that.

Luke fell to his knees on the ground. Jesse—Uncle Jesse. The man might as well have been his father. And Rachel—poor young sweet Rachel. She had a whole life ahead of her. Bo would be devastated. Tears came to his eyes but he refused to break down. He couldn't let this get to him---he had to stay strong for everyone else's sakes . . . there would be enough crying without _him_ adding to it.

Rosco finally made his way to where he was. The sheriff was out of breath from running after the more physically fit young man and looked down to see what it was Luke had seen. He choked back a sob at seeing the wreck down below, knowing how painful it must've been for Luke to see that and how upset the family would be. He had known something had felt funny about Jesse not answer his CB earlier, but he wasn't expecting _that._

The wind whipped through Luke's dark hair, messing it up some. Rosco held onto his hat and shivered, pulling his jacket closer to him. He gave Luke a sorrowful look.

"I'm so sorry, Luke," he said softly, putting a hand on the boy's shoulders. "I'll go call an ambulance." Rosco took one last look at the wreck before going back to his squad car to call in the accident. God, he wasn't looking forward to being the one to tell everyone the news---the downside to being sheriff.

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And so it begins . . . I don't know when I'll get the next chapter up due to my moving back into the dorms, but I will try very hard not to keep y'all waitin'...be patient...:)


	2. Double Funeral

**A/N: I'm sooooo sorry it took so long, I've been half out of my mind with school this week. Plus I totaled my car Sunday so that sucked real bad. And Wednesdays are the only days I have any free time to do anything with, so that's probably when you'll be hearing from me again. I tried to upload chapters 3 and 4 but the stupid site wouldn't let me, so that sucks more. Ugh, life is so hard these days, but anyhow I'll quit yakking and let y'all read.**

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**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Two: Double Funeral**

Rachel's funeral had been the day before Jesse's, seeing how the entire Duke family would have to have time to get together for his services. Rachel's was rather small, only her sisters, brothers-in-law, Daisy and Enos, Bo and Chelsea being there. Cooter would have been there if he had known about it. He was away somewhere traveling around doing odd jobs here and there.

Ali bit her lip to keep herself from bawling. She just about made Luke's hand lose all circulation, she was holding it so tight. Chelsea was in Bo's arms, looking around at everyone and wondering why her mother was not there with her. Eve had almost collapsed with crying, Rosco having to hold her through it, he himself trying to keep himself together for her sake. Enos had a crying Daisy leaned up on him, Daisy every now and again giving a worried glance at Bo.

After the small service was over, Ali couldn't stand the depression anymore and practically dragged Luke towards the car. Eve had managed to calm down a little, looking at the coffin with red puffy eyes. Chelsea looked at Bo and asked innocently,

"Where Moh-mee?"

Eve almost lost it again at that point, Rosco putting his arm around her and taking her towards the car so that she could get some rest at the house. Bo gave his daughter a kiss on the top of her head and held her tight as he looked at the coffin once more. Daisy nudged Enos, suggesting it was time for them to leave Bo to himself.

"At a better place, baby," he told the little girl. "She's at a better place."

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A Year and a Half Earlier . . .

Bo parked the General Lee out in the woods next to Rachel's house, where she lived with her two older sisters. He knew it was late and had no business being out there at that time, but he just had_ to speak to her. He looked through each window to try and figure out which room was hers. At last he spotted her running a brush through her long brown hair in front of the mirror she had in her room. She was wearing a nightgown, probably getting ready for bed. Bo quietly tapped on the window to get her attention. He saw her jump a little and look in her mirror to see out the window and then turned around to look herself. _

When she recognized him she smiled and ran over to the window to open it. Upon doing so she reached her head and gave him a kiss. "Bo, what're you doin' here?" she asked in a whisper, not wanting to sisters to hear. "It's awful late."

"I know," he replied, putting a hand over hers. "But I was thinkin' 'bout how since me an' yous gonna be parents, we might as well be hitched, don't ya reckon?"

Rachel's eyes got wide. "Bo Duke, are you proposin' to me?"

Bo pulled out a wedding ring from his jeans pocket and held it up to her. "You could call it that," he grinned, watching her smile grow bigger.

"Bo," she sighed as he put the ring on her finger. "Where did you—how could get—"

"It was my mom's," he explained, intertwining her fingers with hers. "I've got my dad's with me, too. We can run off to Chicamahoney County and get that preacher up there to marry us real quick if ya'd like."

"Oh, Bo, I'd love to," Rachel told him dreamily. "We're gonna be all right, aren't we?"

"Sure we will, darlin'. So long as that preacher man don't throw a fit when I wake him up."

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Bo sighed, tears running down his cheeks, as he remembered that night that he married Rachel Marie Willows, the night she became Mrs. Bo Duke. He never thought he'd lose her so soon. Shifting Chelsea to his other arm, he began to talk to Rachel as if she were standing right there.

"Rach, I know we had a few rough spots along the way. We didn't exactly get off on the best start, gettin' pregnant and then runnin' off to get married. But one thing's for sure—I don't regret it. Every minute you were around, I was happy, even when Luke was gone in Virginia last year. I may not have had ya very long, but I'll never forget you. I've already forgotten every other girl I'd been with before ya, an' I don't intend to ever be with anyone else, 'cause frankly—if it ain't you, I don't want 'em around."

He rubbed Chelsea's little tummy. "I'll somehow manage to raise Chelsea by myself. I'll be sure to let her know what a wonderful person ya were, Rach, when the time comes that she understands. I love you."

He wiped away a tear from his eyes. "I shouldn't have let ya leave the house that day. Maybe if I'd insisted I go with Uncle Jesse, you'd be here." He squeezed Chelsea lightly and turned to leave.

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**Balladeer: It was like a Duke family reunion at Jesse's funeral. Bo, Luke, and Daisy saw relatives they hadn't seen in _years_, some they never even heard of. A lot of the older folks hadn't seen Jesse since the days when he had first started moonshinin', an' we all know that had to be a long time ago. (sniff) Seems like it was just yesterday me an' Jesse met . . .**

Everybody mingled quietly after the services were over at the cemetery. It seemed so strange, being at that place in two consecutive days, Luke thought. He hated that he had allowed Jesse to leave the house that day when all they had to do was sit and wait for Daisy and Enos to show up. At first, he had actually blamed _them _for this mess, but he realized that was ridiculous. It wasn't their fault Jesse's truck went ballistic and decided to crash over a cliff.

As if to apologize for accusing her, although she didn't know it, Luke gave Daisy a hard squeeze when she walked by. Thinking that he just needed solacing, she hugged him back and rubbed his shoulders, then pulled off and went on to see the other kinfolk. Luke saw Bo talking to their cousin Vance, whom they hadn't seen in years and the dark-haired boy patted Bo's back. Apparently, Bo was telling him about Rachel. Luke didn't know where Coy was, their other cousin who was as close to Vance as Luke was to Bo. Luke's brother, Jeb, hadn't made it because nobody knew where he was to contact him.

He glimpsed at Ali, who was talking to who he supposed were his relatives. He hoped nothing happened to her like what happened to her sister. If she went now, he'd lose both her _and _the baby. At least Bo still had Chelsea with him. Luke sighed and looked up to see Rosco headed towards him. He had a rather sad look on his face, himself upset about Jesse's passing.

"Hi, Luke," he said quietly, his black cowboy hat in his hands. "How ya holdin' up?"

"I'll manage," Luke replied. "I just can't believe he's gone, ya know?"

"I know," Rosco nodded, looking down at the ground. Flash had tagged along with him and was sitting on top of one of his boots. "Eve would've come, but----y'know, she's just real upset 'bout Rachel, and I didn't think it was healthy for her to come out here."

"It's all right, perfectly understandable."

"Yeah . . . I'm just gonna—pay my respects to your uncle, an' get outta here." He shook Luke's hand. "I'll see ya around. Take care. Come on, Flash."

The dog followed obediently, leaving Luke to himself. He turned and fixed his tie better, aggravated at the derned thing. Upon turning he accidentally bumped into somebody that was walking past him in a black suit and red tie.

"Sorry," he muttered, not taking any notice.

The red-tied man looked back at Luke to see if he were watching, then made his way over to Rosco who was looking over the coffin and saying a few words to the man inside it.

**Balladeer: I gotta feelin' this guy's gonna cause trouble. Didn't his momma teach him any manners?**

Flash, who was sitting at Rosco's feet again, perked her ears up a little at the sound of someone coming towards them. She turned her head and sniffed the air around the stranger that was heading towards them. A frighteningly familiar, disturbing smell reached her brain and she stood up and began growling.

"Whoa, nice doggy," the red-tied man said quietly. When he saw no one was paying him any attention, he made a threatening stomp at the dog, who immediately took that as a threat.

_DANGER! DANGER! _Flash's senses told her, and the familiar disturbing smell invaded her better judgment. She reasoned that this person was here to cause malice upon her owner, she bared her teeth and went straight for the guy's leg.

"OWWW!" the man started screaming, falling to the ground and drawing attention from everybody. Rosco turned around and, not knowing what in the world had possessed his dog, kneeled down and immediately tried to pry her off the man.

"Flash, darlin', calm down!" he begged, one hand clenched on her collar and the other trying to open her jaws up to release the man. "Let go!"

He managed to get Flash to let go and he scooped the still growling dog in his arms and wrapped a hand around her muzzle to keep her from wanting to go at him again. "Hush, Flash, what in the _world_?"

Bo and Luke showed up and tried to help the man to his feet. "Oh, leave me alone!" the red-tied man pushed the boys away, stumbling to his feet. He glared at Rosco and pointed at his dog. "You oughta be ashamed, bringin' a vicious dog to a funeral!"

Rosco squeezed Flash protectively. "She ain't vicious, she ain't never done _anything_ like that before." Flash was shaking badly, as if the ordeal had scared her as much as it did everyone else.

"I don't care! She attacked me, I got all these witnesses, and I _demand _you have her destroyed!" he spat out.

Rosco seemed to blank out. _Destroyed?_

Luke grabbed the guy's shoulders. "Listen, I think you're over-reacting. You sure ya didn't do anything to scare her or nothin'? Dogs do bite when they get freaked out by somethin'."

"You call mindin' my own business a reason to get my leg torn off by a deranged animal?"

Flash started licking Rosco's face. Not exactly something a deranged animal would do.

"I'm calling the animal clinic soon as I get this leg stitched up, and I guarantee that you will be visited by someone to put that dog down!" the angry man hissed in fury, limping out into the crowd.

"Who the heck was _that?_" Bo had to ask. Luke shrugged.

Rosco gave a desolate look at Flash, who was now calmed down and acting in her usual way. "Flash, you've really put your daddy in a mess." He had no idea how to get out of this one.

_**--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**The red-tied man continued to limp his way out of sight of the cemetery and met up with the man that had paid him to go through all of that drama._

_"I did as ya said, dog went after me like she was rabid," the man reported with a big smile. He felt a surge of pain in his leg and he frowned. "Way she bit, she might as well have been rabid. When do I get my money?"_

_There was silence from the other party. "Soon as I get it. You still have to call animal control anyways. Finish the job. You'll get what you deserve. Now get in the car and let's be on our way . . . get that leg stitched up. Take pictures for evidence against that mangy hound."_

_"What about the money for snappin' the brake lines on that truck?"_

_"I said I'd pay ya when I get the money, Felix!" the man hissed, making the red-tied man (who was apparently "Felix") tense up. "An' stop blabbin' stuff around, ya don't know who might be listening in out in these woods . . ."_

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**Okay, that's chapter two. The way things look, chapter three won't be up 'til next Wednesday, my extreme apologies. I tried to upload it today but the site wouldn't let me, and Wednesdays are the only days I can do this for the next six weeks. UGH! so please stay patient, I know it's frustrating 'cause I'm rather ticked myself and not getting this out faster. **


	3. So Long, Velvet Ears

**A/N: Good news, I now have all the chapters uploaded to my account, so I can get them out to y'all faster. No more waiting for a whole week, yay! Hope y'all enjoy!**

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**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Three: So Long, Velvet Ears**

Rosco had been in quite a state since the incident at Jesse's funeral. He hadn't let Flash leave his arms in days. Eve was extremely worried about him. He wasn't even eating, he was so upset. Not that she could blame him for that. After all, he had Flash for _years _before he had even _met _her. It was equivalent to a mother giving up her child.

The day came when a white van marked "Capitol City Animal Clinic and Control Center" drove up into the driveway. Eve looked through the blinds, closed her eyes and sighed. She had almost began to hope that this was just a nightmare and would never actually come true.

"Honey," she called to the back, where her husband was sitting in their bedroom with Flash. "It's _them_," she explained, knowing that he would know who _them _was.

She opened the door to face a young, slightly chubby red-haired boy no more than twenty with a white suit on and a clipboard in his hand. He adjusted his glasses he wore on his face and looked at Eve, then looked at his board.

"Uh . . . Missus Coltrane, I presume?"

"Yes," she sighed. She put a hand to her forehead. "Can you give my husband a few minutes . . . he's devastated over this. He's in the back sayin' good-bye."

"Of course, ma'am, everybody else usually does the same thing," the boy, whose nametag read "Billy", said in a fake understanding voice that he used on every other person he came in contact with.

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Rosco was sitting on the floor with Flash in his arms, hugging her tightly. Tears were rolling down his face. He had been knowing that Flash's days were numbered, but he never thought that she would go in this way. He had hoped she would die peacefully in her favorite spot on the couch—not on some cold doctor's table surrounded by strangers.

Flash whined and lifted her head to try and lick her owner's tears off her face. She sensed that something was upsetting him but she didn't know what it was.

Rosco eased up on the dog and gave her a kiss in between her eyes, pulled back and held her face in his hands. Her big brown eyes stared intensely at him, not quite sure what to think. Rosco sniffed, blinked a few more tears from his eyes, and rubbed Flash's long velvety ears.

"Well, Flash," he started off in a shaky voice. "I guess the time's come where we have to say good-bye. You were my best friend for a long time, ol' girl. You were always there for me, listenin' to everything I ever said when nobody else would, the only one that seemed to understand." His face crinkled up and he let out a sob, making Flash whine again and try to snuggle up next to him. He gave her a hug. "Please forgive me for this, velvet ears. I don't wanna do this, an' you might not understand it—I don't either, really—but just remember that your daddy loves you very much . . . and . . . God, I can't do this," he muttered, wiping his eyes with his shirt sleeve.

He hoisted the dog into his arms and lifted himself up off the floor, making his way towards the front door . .

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Eve finally heard Rosco coming down the hall, and gave Billy a warning glare not to say anything remotely stupid. She wasn't too surprised to see her husband with a tear-stained face, not even bothering to meet eyes with the control officer.

"So this is Flash?" Billy asked as he looked the dog over.

_No, this is Rover_, Eve thought sarcastically in her head at the stupid boy's question. Flash gave her a lick on the side of her head and whined. Eve faced the dog, smiled slightly, and rubbed her head. Great, now _she _was gonna start crying, but she couldn't allow herself to break down in front of Rosco since he apparently had already gone over the edge.

Rosco had his eyes closed, looking like he was gonna burst out crying again. Eve gently wrapped her arms around Flash's waist and got her legs supported, and tugged the huge hound from Rosco's arms. She knew that Rosco wouldn't hand her over himself, that would be much too painful for him. He felt like he was Judas Iscariot enough as it was.

Billy held his arms out, having come to the conclusion that a muzzle wasn't needed , and held the dog in his arms as Eve reluctantly handed Flash over. "Um . . .do y'all want the collar and tags? Most people like to keep 'em as items of sentimental value."

Eve looked at her husband, who had his hand over his face to hide the tears that were pouring out of his eyes. She looked back at Flash and reached out to undo her collar. Flash shook her head once the thing was off of her, not used to not having it on. Eve got Rosco's free hand and let him hold the black studded collar with the tags hanging off it.

Billy had the clipboard in one hand, which was hard for him to hold due to the fact he had Flash in both arms. "Uh . . . Mister Coltrane, I need ya to sign this form, please."

Eve snatched the board from Billy's hand, tapped her husband with it, who managed to sign his name without making a mess of it. Eve took it from him and put it back in Billy's hand, who muttered his thanks, bid his good-bye and turned to walk off. Rosco raised his eyes and saw Flash turn her head and whine.

That did it. He couldn't hold it in anymore. He burst into an array of sobbing. Eve had to choke back a few tears herself as she took her husband in her arms and held him while he poured his heart out. She rubbed him on his back and told him real gently, "shhhhh, shhhhh."

Billy stuffed Flash into one of those dog crate things that one would use for their own personal use if on a vacation or what-not. He attached the paper with Rosco's signature on it to the door with a little clippy and went around to the driver's side of the truck to crank up and leave. Flash pawed the door, not understanding why she was in there or why she was being taken away from her family. The truck backed down the driveway, shifted gears, and drove down the road. Flash howled mournfully as she watched her house disappear into the distance.

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_Several Years Earlier . . . _

_Rosco had just arrived at the train depot that morning. He had been waiting almost a week for the police dog that he had seen advertised in a police catalog that he happened to be flipping through one day at the office. He'd always wanted a dog ever since he was a little boy, and now it seemed that he was finally going to get one. _

_The man at the pick-up station was chewing on a toothpick as he flipped through some papers to find the correct one for the sheriff to sign, saying that he got his delivery._

"_I dunno, Sheriff," the huge, balding man with ruddy cheeks said, scratching what little sideburns he had left. "That dog don't seem like no police dog to me. May have been at one time, but she sure don't look in no condition to be nabbin' criminals." He took the clipboard from Rosco once he finished signing. "She's back here in a crate, been whining the whole trip," he said as he made his way to the back of the station, Rosco doing his best to follow him without knocking anything over. _

_The man used a crowbar to pry the door off of the crate that had howling and whining noises coming from it. "I think her collar says "Flash" on it," he informed as he tried to get the door off. "Don't know why, she don't look like she runs too fast to me." He finally got the door cracked off and the dog inside hushed up upon hearing the loud noise._

_Rosco was bent on the floor peering inside and eventually a Basset Hound with some gray on the muzzle came out of the shadows, sniffing about warily at her new surroundings. Rosco got a big grin on his face when he saw her and held his hand out for her to smell._

"_Hi, Flash," he said softly as the dog started licking his fingers. Flash wagged her tail once she determined that this person was friendly and scampered into his arms so she could try and cuddle. "You're awful friendly," he remarked, rubbing the hound's velvety ears._

_The man shook his head. "Still don't look like no police dog. Ya wanna ship her back an' get a German Shepherd or somethin'?"_

_Flash gazed into her new owner's eyes as if to plead him to take her home with him. She whined a little bit and licked his nose. Rosco chuckled at her and rubbed her head. "No, she's fine," he told the man, grunting a little as he hoisted her up in his arms and stood straight up. "Me an' Flash here's gonna get along just fine."_


	4. Grief

**A/N: Okay, this one's short, so forgive me :(**

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**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Four:** **Grief**

Bo and Luke sat quietly in the Boar's Nest in a table at the corner. Ali had stayed at home, babysitting Chelsea. She was too upset to leave the house anyways. Bo was staring at his mug of beer, which he had hardly touched since he ordered it. Luke had picked his own mug up and swished the contents around in a circle, watching the foam swish up against the sides of the glass.

Bo finally shoved his glass away and headed outside without saying a word to Luke. The dark-haired ex-Marine sat by himself for a minute before heading out after him. He found his cousin leaned up against the car looking out into the distance, obviously thinking about Rachel and Jesse. Luke sighed and went to talk to him.

"It's hard, sayin' good-bye," Bo said quietly once he sensed that Luke was near enough to hear him. He hugged himself and breathed deeply. "I knew it was gonna happen with Uncle Jesse someday, but it never really sank in, y'know? Like I half-expected him to live forever."

"I know, I felt the same way."

"An' Rachel—Lord, I never counted on her leavin'. I'd planned on growin' old together, goin' gray-headed and sittin' in rockin' chairs on the front porch watchin' the grandkids play." He wiped his nose with a sleeve. "Now I gotta do all that by myself. Poor Chelsea ain't gonna have no one to bake her cookies after school, no one to bring a Mother's Day card home to . . ."

He chuckled a little. "Funny. Seems like I need Rachel around so that I can get over Rachel leavin'." He put his hand over his face and cried for a minute.

Luke seemed uncomfortable. He wasn't sure how to go about comforting his cousin. At last he figured Bo just needed some time alone and got in his own car to leave. Besides, he had something he wanted to do alone anyways.

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Luke climbed down the steep cliff that Jesse's truck had flown over that horrible day. He wanted to see the remains of the pick-up. He didn't get a chance to on the day the ambulances arrived, too absorbed in getting to the hospital and in the heat of the moment to go down and inspect the area. He carefully stepped around some tree roots that were sticking out. His foot slipped on some small rocks but he caught himself on a tree branch hanging over his head. At last he reached the truck, severely totaled and charred from the crashing and burning.

Tears came to Luke's eyes as he imagined what it must have been like for them to watch themselves go over the cliff and then hit the ground with abominable force, only later to have to be scorched alive. He could only hope that the impact was what killed them, not the fire.

He walked around the truck, observing every detail of the crash. He and the others had the same burning question in their minds since the accident—what had caused them to miss the road and head straight for the cliff in the first place? It didn't seem to make sense. Jesse had never had trouble keeping his eyes on the road before, that Luke was very sure of.

The hood was still popped open from when the truck had landed on the ground. Luke put his hands on either side of the truck, looking at the engine and the other mechanical parts. Everything seemed to be fine. He twisted a few knobs and dug his hand down in between some small spaces to feel around. He touched what was supposed to be the brake line and stopped dead. He felt up and down the line and then pulled the line up to where he could see.

Sliced in half. The line had been cut. Luke dropped the cord and stepped back, looking around him. This had been no accident. Someone intentionally killed Jesse. Whether they meant for Rachel to die as well, he didn't know, but he was very sure that Jesse was an intended victim. But who? Who would have wanted Jesse dead?

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"Enos, I know that he's feelin' down right now, but I really need to talk to him," Luke insisted to the young deputy at the Hazzard Courthouse. "What happened to Uncle Jesse an' Rachel was a crime, an' I need to report to him."

"Luke, I can let you in his office all I want, it's just that he might not listen," Enos tried to explain. "He's been like this all day. He ain't talkin' to nobody, not even to Eve hardly."

Luke didn't seem to listen, pushed his way past Enos and burst into Rosco's office where the sheriff was sitting quietly at his desk and looking at an old photograph of Flash. Luke placed his hands firmly on the desk.

"Rosco, what happened to Jesse an' Rachel wasn't an accident. It was murder. Someone cut the brake line in the pick-up, I saw it myself."

Rosco didn't appear to be listening, but in fact was simply absorbing the information quietly for a later time. He was much too upset to be carrying on a conversation at the moment.

"Rosco, are you payin' any attention? You're the sheriff, you an' Enos need to get out there an' investigate this." He didn't get a response. "Rosco, dammit, will you----" He threw his hands in the air and stormed off. "Useless," he muttered, slamming the office door shut.


	5. An Unborn Victim

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Five: An Unborn Victim**

**Balladeer: The next morning, Bo along with Luke and Ali were at the Boar's Nest. Luke told them about what he had found out about Jesse's truck and they were discussin' the matter privately.**

"So you think they were murdered?" Ali asked, rubbing on her pregnant belly. The idea sickened her.

"Seems that way," Luke replied. "For what other purpose would someone cut a brake line?"

"But why would someone wanna kill Uncle Jesse an' Rachel?" Bo asked in an upset voice. He was holding Chelsea in both arms, who was sound asleep. "Neither of 'em had enemies."

"I'm not sure if Rachel was even supposed to die," Luke told him. "Whoever did this definitely wanted Jesse outta the way, or they wouldn't have picked _his _truck to fool with. I don't think Rachel was an intended victim."

"Well she sure as hell _was _one," Bo growled. It was bad enough having lost Rachel, but knowing that her death may have been unintentional made things even worse.

Ali looked a little uncomfortable as she watched Bo's reaction to what Luke had said. She patted Luke's hand and said, "I'm goin' to go get some water."

She made her way to the bar area where Daisy was workin' behind the counter, wiping off some water-spots left by some customers that had just left.

"Hi, Daisy," Ali greeted as she managed to sit down on a stool. "Can ya fix me a glass of water real quick?"

"Sure thing, sugar," Daisy smiled, reaching under the bar to get the pitcher and pour some in a glass. She handed it to her. "How you an' the baby doin'?"

"All right I suppose. One more month, thank goodness. I feel like I'm havin' a watermelon." She took a sip and sat her glass down just as some guy came and sat down right beside her. "I feel so bad for Bo. Him an' Rachel really had somethin'. Poor little Chelsea, I feel awful that she ain't gonna have a momma now."

Daisy and Ali looked back at the boys, keeping their eyes off of the stranger that had made his seat beside Ali. They didn't notice him slipping something into her drink and then casually walking off.

**Balladeer: Folks, anyone low enough to cause harm to a pregnant woman might as well be a snake. Can't get much lower than that.**

Ali picked up her water glass without looking at it and drank a large gulp of it. She sat it down and was about to ask Daisy when she and Enos were going to start a family of their own when she suddenly got the most terrible pain in her stomach. It was like something was inside of her clawing to get out. She grabbed her heavily pregnant belly and let out a loud cry.

Daisy's eyes grew wide and she yelled for Luke, who was over there in no time flat with Bo, who had sat his sleeping daughter in his chair. At this point, Ali became nearly convulsive with pain, began beating Luke's shoulders as he tried to carry her.

"What's wrong with her?" Luke yelled as he and Bo both tried to calm her motions.

"I don't know, she was just sittin' there drinkin' her water," Daisy replied, growing more scared by the minute. "Y'all need to rush her to the hospital, I don't think that's labor pains she's goin' through!"

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Luke sat in the emergency waiting room along beside Bo, who had called Eve to tell her what had happened. Daisy hadn't got off of work yet so she couldn't be there, although she would've been. She was keeping an eye on Chelsea for Bo until he got back. Eve had managed to drag Rosco along, who had told Enos to go keep a watch on Daisy. And they all sat in there, waiting and praying that everything was all right with Ali.

At last, Dr. Alan Finley arrived. He had been the one to deliver Bo and Rachel's daughter last year. When Bo saw him, he figured that Ali must have had the baby and nudged Luke's arm.

Dr. Finley had a very grave look on his face. "Luke?" he asked as everybody stared at him.

Luke stood up and immediately began to ask questions. "Is Ali all right? What happened to her? Is the baby goin' to be okay?"

The doctor was silent for a few moments, recollecting his thoughts. Eve grabbed her husband's hand and put her other hand to her mouth, just knowing that something bad had happened.

"Luke," Dr. Finley finally began. "Ali is resting in her bed right now. Everything seems to be okay for her, she just needs to be monitored for a few more hours. It appeared that she had ingested a significant amount of rat poison."

The room had never seemed so quiet up until that point.

"Rat poison?" Luke repeated, unable to understand how this sort of thing could have happened. "Why would she have _that _in her system? It's not like she was depressed—the baby. What about the baby, will the baby be all right?"

"I'm sorry, Luke. I'm afraid she lost the baby due to the poisoning. We performed an emergency C-section to try and save it but it was already dead. We are still flushing her system by dialysis and if everything goes okay in the next few hours, she can leave to go home."

Bo placed his head in his hands, feeling so sorry for his cousin. Luke just stood there, not believing this had happened. Eve began to cry softly, hiding her face behind Rosco's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Finley repeated. He always hated delivering bad news to folks regarding their loved ones. "Ali's in room 108. She's still asleep, but you can go in and see her if you like."

"Thanks, doc," Luke said quietly, the doctor nodding at the others and then leaving to attend to his other patients.

Bo stood up and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. "You gonna be all right?"

"I don't know. I just wanna be alone."

Bo nodded, understanding perfectly well how his cousin was feeling. Rosco pulled a handkerchief out of his front shirt pocket to give to Eve and managed to get her off the couch so that they could leave. All this grief that had been going on lately was killing her.

Luke slowly made his way to Room 108. He took a deep breath and sighed before entering the already opened door. He saw Ali lying in a bed with her eyes closed, hooked up to all kinds of monitors and machines that kept accurate measurements of her bodily activities. He saw the dialysis machine, slowly cleansing her poisoned blood. An IV was hanging on a metal pole on the other side of the bed. At least _she_ wasn't gone. Gone like Rachel---he understood immediately how Bo had felt when he found out that Rachel had been killed...if Ali had gone, Luke would've felt the same way.

Luke looked at her stomach area, which had been so heavily laden with their child but was now almost as flat as it was before they became pregnant. It seemed so surreal to him that the joys of becoming a parent had disappeared in such a brief moment. He found himself regretting at snapping at Rosco about being so depressed over his dog---having no children and _unable _to have any, he just transferred his parental instincts to Flash, while Luke felt the same about their baby.

He sat down in a chair beside Ali and held her hand, tears running down his face. He wiped them away with his free hand, breathing heavily.

"Luke?" he heard Ali ask in a faint voice.

He jerked his head up and saw her eyelids slowly flutter open. She sighed and squeezed his hand. "Luke?"

"Right here, darlin'," he answered her, leaning up to give her a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm right here."

"What—what happened?" she asked, still groggy from surgery.

He swallowed before replying. "The doctor said you ingested rat poison. That's what made you go crazy at the Boar's Nest. Ali, do you have any idea how that could've happened?"

Her forehead furrowed and her eyebrows knitted close together to show that she was thinking. "I—I don't know. I was . . . just drinkin' water. An' then I felt . . . this awful pain."

"Is there anything else you remember? Come on, Ali, think!"

She looked rather frustrated at having to use her half-asleep brain. "I think—I think somebody sat beside me. I—I don't remember much."

"It's okay, it'll come back to ya," he assured her, putting his other hand on top of her hand that he was already holding.

"Luke?" she asked sleepily.

"Yes?"

"Is the—is the baby okay?"

Luke got a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, like someone had just thrown a rock into it. He decided it'd be best to tell it to her straight. "We lost it, Ali. We lost the baby."

She seemed all right for a second or two, probably because she hadn't quite comprehended the new information yet. Then she began to cry softly, and then the crying got harder and harder. Luke rose from the chair and wrapped her best he could in his arms, comforting her as much as possible. Then he cried himself---over Jesse, Rachel, the baby, _everyone_.

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**My sources tell me that y'all are gonna burn me at the stake...**


	6. Fear Itself

**A/N: Okay, no one burned me at the stake, but I got a little sunburnt I think. I'm givin' y'all a break from the deaths so no one dies in this chapter :)**

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Six: Fear Itself**

_**A Few Days Earlier . . . **_

_The truck was half-way to Capitol City by now. Flash had given up on escaping her crate and had curled up to sleep best she could on the road. Billy was up at the front driving, gnawing away at a tuna sandwich. He had another pick-up to make back in the city—someone's Dalmatian had decided to bite the owner's young child, so apparently that had to be taken care of. _

_Some static interfered with the song that Billy was listening to on the radio. He groaned and started messing with the switches, the sandwich held in his mouth with his teeth. He didn't notice that while he was playing with the stations, he had wandered off from his side of the highway, heading for a eighteen-wheeler. The diesel honked a warning and Billy jerked his head in time to see the huge truck coming towards him. In a heart beat, he swerved his own truck out of the diesel's way and then slammed on the brakes once he was back on his side of the road._

_Flash's crate bumped, waking her up, and the kennel lurched forward out of the truck and hit the road with a loud BAM! Flash looked around desperately, confused on how she had ended up on a highway yet still inside her dungeon._

_Billy cursed himself for being careless and continued to drive towards the city, unaware that Flash had fallen out of his truck. So Flash remained on the highway, still looking around confusedly. She looked out her little door, which faced the oncoming traffic and a truck headed right for her rammed her sideways and had her crate rolling down the ditch and into the forest. The idiot hadn't even seen the crate in the road, explaining why he didn't just stop, and Flash's crate went tumbling down down down until it hit a giant pine tree with a loud THUMP!_

_Flash yelped from the collision. The little door on her crate popped open, but it didn't do her much good because for the next twenty-four hours, the Basset Hound was knocked unconscious._

_----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_**Present Day**_

_Bo was running down the road. Jesse's truck seemed to be getting farther and farther away from him. He opened his mouth to scream "watch out, watch out!" but he heard no sound. In slow motion, he watched the truck slide out of control and go over the cliff. Bo screamed in agony. The background seemed to change and he found himself beside Jesse' s overturned truck. _

"_Uncle Jesse! Rachel!" he yelled, though he couldn't hear himself. He forced his way to the passenger side and held Rachel in his arms. She was still breathing but her head had been busted open; she was losing more and more blood by the second._

"_Oh, Rachel, thank goodness you're okay!" Bo finally heard himself cry._

_Rachel looked up at him with empty eyes and said, "It's all your fault, Bo! It's all your fault! You shouldn't have let me go with Jesse! Now Chelsea doesn't have a mother! All your fault . . ."_

_With that, Rachel's eyes shut and she took her last breath. Bo looked towards the heavens and screamed a blood-curdling cry._

Bo jumped up in his bed, sweat pouring off of him. He looked around frantically, his heart racing from the nightmare. He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the clock. One-fifteen AM. He blew a gust of air and patted himself on the face.

"Get a hold of yourself, Bo," he muttered. "It wasn't your fault. It was just a bad dream."

But he couldn't go back to sleep . . . not after that.

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Lulu awoke at nearly two o'clock that morning. She had no idea what could have caused her to wake up that early, but now that she _was _awake she couldn't go back to sleep. She thought maybe a glass of warm milk would help her get some more rest so she put on her housecoat and went downstairs to the kitchen.

She used the handrail as a guide as she went downstairs in the dark, not wanting to switch on any lights in fear that it would only wake her even more. She shivered slightly from the cold that was getting into the house from somewhere and pushed open the swinging door into the kitchen. She opened the fridge, the light from that alone burning her eyes. She squinted into the inside of the refrigerator, and grabbed the gallon of milk sitting on the top shelf.

Before closing the door, she leaned up and turned to go towards the cabinet. When she did so, she looked up and saw someone standing in the far corner of her kitchen. She gasped and dropped the milk, the white substance spilling out all over the floor and around her feet. Her eyes adjusted slightly and she recognized who it was. But—that was impossible! It couldn't possibly be—

"Jefferson?"

**Balladeer: Remember that guy from Jesse's funeral that "Felix" was talkin' to? Thought he seemed familiar . . . **

The short, balding man that had been sent away to Bonner State Prison over a year ago began to laugh. "Surprise, kumquat!" he chuckled. "Didn't expect to see _me, _did ya?"

"How did—how did you get out?"

"Lulu, my dear, don't ya have any faith in my skills anymore? I made a few friends in prison an' got myself out. Oh, kumquat, you have no idea how awful it was in that horrible place," he said in his whiny voice, trying to get her to find pity in him, all the way walking towards her. "Those guards were atrociously insensitive to our needs, a lot of the other prisoners picked on me because of my size an' the fact that I _used _to be County Commissioner. The food was just terrible—I really miss those home-cooked meals of yours."

"But, Jefferson—you just can't break out of prison! Have you gone mad?"

"Mad?" Boss Hogg laughed. "Mad? Kumquat, the only kind of _mad_ that I am is the kind that means _extremely upset and aggravated_. Not the kind the means _having lost your mind_. Of course most people would disagree—"

"Who all knows that you've escaped?" Lulu asked, hiding behind the refrigerator door. She wasn't sure how prison had changed her husband, and quite frankly wasn't too confident that she could still trust him. "Who all's lookin' for ya?"

"Never mind all that. The point is that I'm back."

"But you can't possibly think that things can go back to the way they used to be!" Lulu exclaimed. "You're an escaped convict, ya can't be prancin' up and down the streets without anyone noticin'!"

Boss got an evil look on his face. "I know that. Oh, how I know. My reputation has been sliced, diced, and overcooked! An' it's all because of them rotten Dukes—_and _that no-good brother of yours!" His facial expression softened into a sweet look and his voice became more friendly. "But never you worry, Lulu. _You _didn't do anything to me. I would _never _hurt you."

He was about two feet in front of her when he stopped. Lulu thought her heart was going to burst out of her chest. One half of her was glad to see her darling husband again, but the other half was fearful that he was no longer the man that she had married—someone that she couldn't rely on anymore.

"What do you mean by all that?" she asked in a suspicious tone. "You're not the one responsible for all these "accidents" that's been going on lately, are you? Jesse, Bo's wife Rachel, Rosco's little dog, and Luke an' his wife?"

Boss's smile fell and he turned away from Lulu to go out the back door.

"J.D.?" she asked as he did so. "J.D., what in blue blazes is goin' on around here?"

He stopped at the door and turned his head to face her. "It was nice seein' ya again, kumquat."

Boss left out the door, leaving Lulu alone in the kitchen. She buried her head in her arms and cried.

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Rosco was outside his house checking Eve's car to make sure that no one had tampered with it overnight. After what happened to Jesse and Rachel, he wasn't taking any chances with his own wife. The last thing he wanted to see was her lifeless body lying in a coffin. He'd get the shivers just thinking about it. There was nothing he could do about Flash, nothing he _could've _done, but he wasn't going to allow Eve to be taken away from him.

If Eve wasn't already worried about Rosco, she sure was now. He'd gone out of his mind lately with fear that something could happen to her like with her sisters. Checking the car was one thing . . . now every time they went to the Boar's Nest, he'd keep an eagle's eye on her food and drink whenever she was served, scared that someone would poison it the minute he took his eye off it. Not that she blamed him----she had become rather frightened herself, ever since Rachel's "accident". Daisy had mentioned to her about how Luke thought the whole thing was a murder. Eve wondered if what happened to Ali and Luke was part of the crazy scenario. The idea that someone was lurking about trying to kill them scared the wits out of her.

She was looking out the window when she saw Luke pull up in the driveway behind her car. Rosco reluctantly shut the hood of the sedan and walked over to talk.

"Rosco, I think we've all come to the same conclusion here," Luke told him, getting out of his car. "Something fishy is goin' on in Hazzard, and whatever it is—it's after all of us."

The sheriff glanced at the window in time to see Eve walk away from it. He looked back at Luke to allow him to continue.

"First, Jesse's truck had the brake line cut. That's pretty obvious that someone wanted _him _outta the picture. I don't think Rachel was meant to go, but she did. Then there's the whole poisoning thing with Ali. That's a strike against me, knowing it'd kill me to lose either her or the baby."

"What about Flash?" Rosco asked, his heartstrings tugging with sadness at the very thought of her. "What about what happened to her?"

"That's right. Me an' Bo asked almost everybody if they knew that fella that Flash bit an' they had no idea who he was. So I'm thinkin' that he just showed up to 'cause trouble and for some reason get rid of Flash."

"So that's a strike against me." The very idea that someone had targeted an innocent, elderly animal just to get to him made the sheriff extremely upset. "Luke, why would someone be after us?"

"I don't know. But the point as that they _are._ Whoever they are, they must have one heck of a grudge against us."


	7. Hot Pursuit

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Seven: Hot Pursuit**

Flash awoke to the sound of birds chirping in the trees overhead. She felt a terrible pain in the back of her head, as if she'd rammed up against something. She slowly opened her eyes and at first didn't understand how she had ended up in a dog crate out in the forest. Then she remembered something about falling out of a truck, getting hit by another one, and then ending up downhill and hitting a tree.

The door to her crate was open, the papers with her owner's signature on them still attached. Flash rose to her feet and shook herself slightly. The headache was starting to leave, but now her stomach was rumbling. It'd been over twenty-four hours since she'd last eaten or drank anything. She shakily exited the crate and sniffed the air. She didn't smell anything familiar, had no clue where she was.

She sniffed at the papers, which had Rosco's scent on them. She figured that meant it was safe to eat, even if it was only paper. She took the papers in her mouth and slowly chewed them up and let them digest in her mouth before swallowing. They tasted terrible, but her stomach didn't care.

Flash made herself walk up the hill that led back to the highway from whence she came from. She heard a car coming from her left. She wagged her tail. Perhaps it was her owner, coming to retrieve her from this predicament. A few seconds later, a black sports car came whizzing by without stopping. Flash's tail stopped wagging. She was alone.

Sadly, she slowly began to walk to the left, somehow having the feeling that was the way home.

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**Back in Hazzard County**

Lulu didn't come to work that day. Rosco didn't know what reason his sister had for not showing up, but then he wasn't about to press her for information. It wasn't as if she _had _to show up.

Rosco was at his desk doing a bit of paperwork. Enos was in the next room with Daisy, who was on her break from work. Eve, who still worked at the courthouse, was in the same room as Enos and Daisy, only she was just passing through to get her husband a fresh cup of coffee while she had nothing to do.

Everything was so peaceful it seemed. Eve opened the door to Rosco's office, coffee mug in hand when the excitement started. Almost immediately, the windows shattered into a thousand pieces, gunfire exploding in the air. Eve dropped the mug, and in almost slow-motion Rosco flung himself over the desk to knock her to the floor and keep her from being hit. Glass went flying everywhere and he covered her head best he could.

The sound of Daisy screaming entered the air as the drive-by shooters drove past the building.

"You all right?" Rosco asked in a shaky voice, helping Eve off the floor.

"I'm fine, dear," she replied, although it was obvious that she was scared to death.

Rosco burst into the next room and witnessed a horrendous sight. Enos was lying on the floor, Daisy holding him in her arms crying. He was bleeding profusely from his gut where he had been shot.

Rage filled the sheriff. Whoever was after them had definitely gone too far now. Putting Eve in danger and assaulting his own deputy was a very personal blow.

"Eve, help Daisy get Enos to the hospital!" he instructed, rushing out the door. "First aid kit's in the closet!"

Rosco ran outside just in time to spot the getaway car turn the corner that led towards Chickasaw County. He glared at the car, not about to let them get away. He ran to his patrol car and hopped in, quickly starting it up and letting the lights and sirens alert the traffic to get out of the way.

He raced down the road and eventually caught up with the shooters' vehicle. He pulled out his own gun in case they decided to start shooting at him while they drove. He could've really used a deputy right about now, but considering that his only one was lying on the courthouse floor bleeding to death, he didn't have much choice but to do this himself.

He heard a gunshot ring and his windshield cracked from the impact. They were indeed shooting at him. He ducked down in his seat enough to where he could possibly avoid getting hit yet still see to drive at the same time. He was lousy at shooting with his left hand, but he put the gun in that hand anyways.

Rosco used his right hand to steer while he stuck his left hand out the window. Unable to aim and drive simultaneously, he blindly fired a shot at the shooters' car. Nothing seemed to have been hit, so he fired again. Dammit, but he hated shooting with his left hand!

He heard the other car start firing again so he pulled his hand inside until they finished. His windshield cracked even more from bullets hitting it. Finally, he wasn't even able to see out of it at all. Aggravated to the extreme, Rosco punched the steering wheel and slowly came to a stop as the other car drove out of sight.

Rosco put a hand on his head and started to cry for a minute to get his act together. He didn't know what the Sam Hill was going on, but it was driving him crazy. He came to his senses and picked up handle to the CB.

"Daisy, Evie, y'all got Enos in the car okay?"

"_This is Daisy, Enos is in my backseat. Headin' to the hospital now."_

"Ten-four, Daisy. I'm gone." To himself he added, "That dipstick better make it."

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_After Billy, the animal control officer, loaded up the Dalmatian that he had been called to pick up, he noticed that the crate containing the old Basset Hound was missing. He cursed to himself, looking around the truck to see if it had just slid to a different position. It hadn't. He cursed again, scratching his head in confusion. How could an overweight dog in a crate go missing? His boss would be furious. _

_He then remembered how he had swerved that diesel earlier. The crate must have flung out onto the road during that moment. Well then, there was no way that she could possibly be alive if that had happened. He sure wasn't going to go back and search the entire highway for her. But that still didn't solve the problem that his boss would be extremely upset over this. _

"_I'll just tell 'em that the dog had died naturally when I arrived," he said to himself as he drove out of the Dalmatian owner's driveway. "She was old anyways."_

_---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

sorry...kinda short...


	8. What To Do

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Eight: What To Do**

After what had happened at the courthouse, Luke called a "meeting" that only included himself, Bo, and Rosco at the Boar's Nest. Daisy was staying overnight at the hospital with Enos, who was all right after the bleeding had stopped and the bullet removed from his abdomen. Eve was staying over at Luke's with Ali, along with little Chelsea, so that they wouldn't be alone.

Luke finally got the meeting started. "I think by now we can say for sure that we are all bein' targeted for whatever reason there is. Jesse, Rachel, Flash, Ali, Enos—they're all our loved ones. What's happened to them has affected the three of us, not countin' the ladies, deeply an' personally. Which can only mean that Hazzard's no longer safe for them. As long as this is all goin' on, the girls cannot stay in Hazzard."

Bo looked up from his drink to give his cousin a strange look. Rosco stopped pouring himself another shot of buttermilk.

"Luke," Bo began. "You mean----"

"Yes. The girls have got to leave Hazzard County before the killers strike again. Any one of them could be next—any one of _us _could be next. They have to leave and we'll stay here an' try to put an end to all this. Once we get the situation straightened out, they can come home. But until then, it is imperative that they get out of harm's way."

"Ya don't have to make it sound so easy," Rosco muttered. As much as he wanted Eve to be safe, it would be hell for him to send her away.

"I'm not sayin' it will be. I don't like the idea anymore than y'all do, but it's the only way. I already know that Daisy's not goin' to leave Enos's side at that hospital, so she'll be safe over there. Eve, Ali, an' Chelsea have to go however. They can all ride together, so not to draw too much attention to themselves."

"Where will they go?" Bo had to ask. "Who's gonna take 'em in?"

"They've got family out there. The only relative they had in Hazzard was Cooter an' I don't even know where he is now. They can call up an aunt or uncle or someone in the morning and make a quick arrangement."

"_Freeeeeeze_, hold on a pea-pickin' minute!" Rosco interrupted. "When exactly were ya suggestin' that they leave?"

"As soon as possible----tomorrow."

"_Tomorrow!_" Bo and Rosco both exclaimed at the same time.

"That only gives us each one night to explain everything to 'em and say good-bye!" Bo had to say.

"Chelsea's only one year old, she doesn't need any explainin'," Luke told him.

"Well, Eve's _thirty-_one—no wait, thirty-two—an' she's gonna want a _lot _of explainin' and she _still _won't like it," Rosco butted in. "An' if Ali's anything like her sister, she ain't gonna like it none either!"

"Guys, I know it's hard, but it's the only sensible thing to do! An' y'all _know _that!"

Bo and Rosco fell silent. It was true. They knew that Luke was right. They just didn't want to go through the process of telling the girls good-bye. But it had be done.

"What time do they need to leave?" Bo asked quietly, keeping his eyes focused on his beer.

"I'd say about nine o'clock oughta do it," Luke replied. He was secretly wondering how Ali would take the news of being separated after she had just survived a near-tragedy. "Rosco, they're gonna have to go in Eve's car. Y'all are the only ones that have an extra vehicle."

"All right," the sheriff said in a soft voice.

It was eight o'clock PM. They had only the rest of the night and a little of the next morning to say their good-byes.

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"Come on, Chelsea, open your mouth," Eve told the youngster as she tried to feed her some squashed bananas from a bowl.

Chelsea tightened her lips and shook her head, determined not to eat. Then she got her arm and swung the bowl onto the kitchen floor.

"Now you've gone an' made a mess," Eve sighed, bending down to pick up the bowl. Chelsea started giggling. "Oh, ya like seein' Aunt Evie clean up _your _messes, don't ya?" The girl hid her face behind her hands and squealed.

Eve rolled her eyes and smiled. "You lil' monkey," she chuckled, going over to the sink to get a wash rag so she could wipe the bananas off the linoleum floor. "Ali, ya hungry for bananas? They're fresh off the floor."

Her younger sister was sitting alone in the living room on the couch, curled up in a blanket. She'd been mostly quiet ever since she had come home from the hospital. Not that anyone could blame her. Needless to say, she didn't respond to Eve, who had plucked Chelsea from her highchair and carried her into the living room.

She sat the girl down and she immediately began to play with her toy cars that she had scattered about. Leave it to Bo Duke. Only _his _daughter would be playing with model cars instead of baby dolls—well, perhaps Luke's daughter would also, if he ever got one.

Ali watched Chelsea play on the floor and then buried her head in her arms, not to cry, but just to keep herself from imagining her own child playing on their floor. Eve's eyes lowered down, not knowing really what to say to her. She couldn't say that she understood what she was going through, because she didn't. She'd never been pregnant, never had a child—and she never would so long as the doctor said that Rosco couldn't have any.

"Eve, could you please take her to another room?" Ali muttered, not looking up. "I love her, but I can't stand to look at her just now."

Eve stared at her sister for a moment, a little surprised that she had said something to her, but then she bent down and hoisted Chelsea up (along with a few of her toys so that she wouldn't fuss) and carried her into the extra room—the room that had been intended on being the baby's. It had a little bed in it, complete with blankets and a mobile, a bassinet, a little toy chest, a dresser, etc. Heartbreaking that it wasn't going to be used.

She heard the sound of cars pulling up into the drive. Good, the boys were back. She'd been eaten alive with curiosity at what they had been discussing in private over there at the Boar's Nest.


	9. One Last Night, Part One

**A/N: Okay, we're gonna have a few sappy chapters for a while to break away from the angsty stuff, so just read and enjoy, hopefully :)**

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**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Nine: One Last Night, Part One**

Rosco was making Eve worried. He'd never been so quiet on a ride home before. Normally he'd break any hint of silence with some sort of stupid joke that he'd heard from someone around town, but tonight he didn't do anything but stare at the road and drive. He'd glance over at her every now and then but he still wouldn't say anything. She was so tempted to turn the radio on, anything to make the quiet go away. She'd noticed that Bo and Luke looked rather dreary themselves. She didn't know if Ali had noticed it in Luke or not, but _she _knew something was up the minute they walked in the door.

Truth was, he was trying to think of a way to tell her real easy like about her having to leave town. He knew that she wouldn't like the idea, not one bit. It killed him that she'd have to go—he didn't know if he'd be able to handle being apart from her for so long. Ever since he'd met her, life had seemed to take a turn for the better for him. She always had a knack at explaining things to him and making things more simple.

"All right, what's wrong?" Eve asked, ending the silence that had only lasted five minutes but felt like an eternity.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when she spoke. "Nothin's wrong," he said rather quickly. "What makes ya think anything's wrong? There ain't nothin' wrong—"

She placed her hand on his shoulder to calm him down. "Yes, there is. So just tell me." He seemed to be a little uncomfortable. "Rosco?"

He looked about ready to cry. His eyes twitched a little trying to control himself in front of her. "Well . . . honey . . . it's like this. Um . . . the boys an' I . . . we think it'd be best if—if you took Ali an' Chelsea out of Hazzard until this all blows over." He saw out of the corner of his eye that she was staring at him blankly. "Y'know, for y'alls own safety."

"_Our _safety!" she exclaimed. "What about _you_, I ain't leavin' you here alone to get killed!"

"Eve, ya have to go," he told her in a calm voice. "Look what happened to your sisters. I don't want that happenin' to you."

"Well I don't want the next time I see you to be in a funeral home!" she argued, tears squirting out of her eyes. "I'm not goin'!"

"Evie, look—if anythin' _does _happen to me, well----you're still young, you can always find someone to look after ya----if somethin' happened to you, I couldn't do that." The word "mistake" flashed in his mind as soon as he said that.

Her eyes widened. She couldn't believe she just heard him say that. "Rosco Pervus—how _dare _you say such a hateful thing to me!"

"Mistake" was an understatement. "Darlin'—"

"Don't you _Darlin'_ me, Rosco Coltrane!" she interrupted, tears rolling down her face. "If anything ever happened to you, I'd die myself. I'd die a thousand times over. I'd never be able to crawl into bed or walk outside without thinkin' about you. An' here you are implyin' that I'll get over it an' move on! I've never been so insulted in my life, I can't believe you'd say such a thing about me!" She turned and faced her own window, wrapped her arms around herself and cried—out of anger and sadness.

Rosco's heart felt like it had just been scuffed. Horrendously scuffed, too. He'd never meant to hurt her feelings. He sure never meant to imply that she wouldn't miss him if he were to die—he knew that she'd miss him terribly.

He forced himself not to cry, even though she wasn't looking at him at the moment. "Evie—sweetheart, don't . . . don't cry, please. Don't do that. Evelyn?"

They were almost home. Dammit, he couldn't go in the house with her like this—with himself like this. At this rate, she was acting like she'd never forgive him for this. Not knowing what else to do, Rosco suddenly jerked the car onto a side road that led away from the town and towards the wood.

Eve felt the jerk and heard him gun the engine. She shot up and looked out the window, wiping her eyes the whole while. "This ain't the way home, where are we goin'? Rosco?"

He didn't answer. He just made the car go faster, zipping around the curves and going further into the middle of nowhere. If there had been another car involved, it would have appeared that he was in the middle of a chase, except that he was the only one on the road at this time of night.

Eve was beginning to wonder if the events of the past week had finally succeeded in making her husband lose his mind. It certainly seemed that way, what with him almost wrapping his patrol car around a tree every time he went around a curve. She was too scared to say anything to him, as if it would disrupt his train of thought and they really _would _crash into something.

After a few minutes of this crazy torture, he turned down another small road that led deeper into the woods and at the end of it was a little old barn that used to be used to house cattle in the winter. It hadn't been used since the settlers' days. The field that it used to sit in was now a giant forest that belonged to no one in particular. Kids used to come out here and fool around, but it was too cold for any of that tonight.

Rosco parked and shut down the engine once they were up under the roof and out of sight. As soon as the headlights deadened, the entire place was pitch black, save for the small beams of moonlight shining down through the holes in the roof of the barn. Eve was terrified. She hadn't any idea where her husband had dragged them, nor his intentions, and the only sound she could hear was her own heavy breathing.

"You gonna listen to me now?" Rosco finally asked her.

The sudden sound of his voice scared her slightly, her heart ramming in her chest. She gulped and nodded, although he couldn't very well see it. He simply took her silence as a "yes".

"As I was tryin' to tell you—me an' the boys came to the conclusion that it was too dangerous for you girls to stay in town. We think that—that someone is after us and has been usin' y'all to rip us apart. We don't think anything that's happened were accidents . . . Flash included." He rubbed a hand across his brow. "That's why we need y'all to leave Hazzard. To protect y'all."

His voice started cracking with emotion. "Evie . . . if _anyone _ever hurt you . . . in _any _way . . . I'd-----I'd never forgive myself." He choked back a sob. He couldn't lose control of himself in front of her. "I'd feel like—like I failed to keep ya safe. Like I allowed someone to harm ya." He was shaking now, trying his absolute hardest to hold back from crying but he still felt small drops coming from the corners of his eyes. "I love you so much that it hurts me sometimes----like now. I don't want you to go—I'd rather ya stay with me, but if it means that you might get hurt, I want you to go."

Eve had giant tears dropping from her face. "Oh, darlin' . . . but I can't just go away an' worry for hours on end whether or not you're alive. I'd lose my mind if I came home without you here to come back to."

"I know you would," he said softly, reaching out with his hand and feeling around for hers, which he found and gave a tight squeeze to. "I'd go with ya if I could, but I can't. I'm the sheriff. I have a responsibility to protect not only you but everybody else in Hazzard from whoever is causin' all this pain." He lifted her hand up and gave it a kiss. "Please go, Eve. If not for me, then for Ali or Chelsea. They need someone like you to keep things together for 'em through this."

Eve took the hand that he wasn't holding and felt the side of his face. She felt wetness from tears he'd been shedding the entire time he had been talking to her. It killed her that she'd been the one to put them there. She wrapped her hand around the back of his head and pulled herself close to him, placing a gentle yet firm kiss on his lips.

She pulled away just a hair, her eyelids half closed. "All right, I'll go," she whispered, letting her lips barely touch his as she said it. "But the minute I hear you're in trouble, I'm comin' straight back here an' gettin' you out of it." She kissed him again. "That's a promise."

Rosco had thought he couldn't love her anymore than he already did, but at that moment he stood corrected. Hell, he'd fallen in love with her all over again. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him, situating her to where she was straddling his lap in the driver's seat. He drew her head down to his and intensified their kiss. Damn, it had been a long time—too long—since they'd last . . .

"Eve?" he asked her in a hoarse voice.

"Hmm?" she replied, undoing the buttons of his jacket.

"I don't think—it's a good idea—to be doin' this—out here," he told her, every three or four words getting interrupted with a kiss.

"Tiddly-tuddly," she murmured, borrowing one of his little sayings. "It's too cold out for anyone to be lurkin' about." She finished with the jacket buttons and moved her hands lower to his gun belt. "'Sides, we have to make the most of tonight. We won't be seein' each other for a while, hmmm?"

A smile tugged at his lips. "Make the most of it, huh?."

Before Eve knew what was happening, she felt her hands going back and the slap of cold metal around her wrists. She heard a snapping noise following the cold metal feel. She tried to move her hands but found that she had been . . . oh . . .

Rosco had that look in his eyes. She could see the sparkle even in the dark.

"You're a little overdue for a cuffin' an' stuffin'," he told her, taking his hands off her wrists from where he had handcuffed her to the steering wheel.

She gave him a lopsided smile. "Maybe, but I'm waiving the right to remain silent . . . and if I find out you don't have the keys to these . . ."


	10. One Last Night, Part Two

**A/N: Okay, this one's REAL sappy, IMO.**

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**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Ten: One Last Night, Part Two**

**Balladeer: Luke just told Ali what the plan was for the girls to get outta Hazzard—and as predicted, she was _not _too happy**

"You want us to _what_?" Ali screeched.

"Hon, it's the only way to keep you girls safe," Luke said, ready to bail out of the way in case she decided to throw something at him. "Eve an' Chelsea are goin' with ya."

"I don't care!" she screamed, stamping her foot on the floor. "I can't leave her without you!" Tears were pouring from her eyes. "I've already lost a baby, I can't be losin' you too!"

"Darlin', nothin's gonna happen to me—"

"You don't know that! We didn't know that _this _was goin' to happen to our baby, did we? You can't say nothin'll happen to you!"

Luke didn't know how to respond to that. No, he didn't know that the baby was going to die. No, he had no way of promising her that he would be safe from whoever it was doing these things to them. Ali noticed that he couldn't think of anything to say and went into an uproar.

"It's not fair!" she shouted, throwing the couch pillows across the room. "I did everything I could to be healthy for the baby! I ate right, exercised right, went to the doctors, _everything_!"

"I know you did," Luke tried to solace her but to no avail.

As he was trying to pick up couch pillows from the floor, Ali burst into the nursery—the nursery that was now not going to be used, the one that their baby was supposed to be living in next month. Luke heard the sound of something breaking, dropped everything and ran inside to see his wife kicking the baby crib apart.

"Ali, what're you doin'!" he exclaimed.

"I can't stand it anymore, Luke!" she cried, leaving the torn bed and tossing teddy bears from their shelves on the wall and knocking the bassinet over on its end. "I can't stand passin' by this room an' knowin' there's not gonna be a baby in it!"

She grabbed a porcelain piggy bank that had little painted flowers on it and hurled against the wall, the small pig shattering into pieces and leaving a good-sized hole in the wall. She collapsed to the floor where she continued to sob, repeating over and over, "It's not fair. It's not fair."

Luke rushed to her side and tried to help her up but she was being stubborn and insisted on being left alone. It hurt him that she was so upset about this, not that he could blame her. She _had _taken care of herself the past eight months with their baby, only now it seemed like it had been a waste of time. He rubbed her hair, trying to console her but she still laid there on the carpet crying.

"Ali, I know it hurts. I was lookin' forward to bein' a father, just like you were to bein' a mother." The crying didn't seem to go down any. Luke sighed. "You're not the only one that lost somebody, Alison."

Ali picked up her head, wiped the tears away from her eyes and tried to sit up on the carpet. Her eyes were red and puffy and her nose was stopped up from crying. "You must think I'm crazy," she sniffed, wiping her nose with a sleeve. "A ranting lunatic. I'm sorry, I know you're upset, too. I wish you'd act like you were though. I never see you get emotional."

"I've always been like that," he told her, wrapping his arms around her to comfort her.

"Luke? You think we'll have another chance at parenthood?" she asked, resting her head in his arms.

He sighed, trying to think of how to say it. "If we want to, I don't see why not."

"You don't think that—that we'd be replacing the one we lost, would you?"

He gave her a squeeze. "No, of course not. I'll always remember that one. But I'll love the next child just as much."

Ali nodded in agreement, still laying in Luke's arms. "So, um . . . what was it you were sayin' about goin' somewhere with my sis an' niece?"

Luke chuckled at how she just switched subjects so easily. "I love you, Ali, but you confuse the mess outta me sometimes."

"Hey, I could've said the same for you a few times before," she smiled softly, lifting her head so he could her a kiss.

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_April 1988_

_Luke was looking at an assortment of diamond rings through the display case. He had money saved over and he was wanting to buy an engagement ring to propose to Ali with. They'd really hit it off since he'd come back from the Marines and her coming back to Hazzard. He loved her wild personality, rounded off nicely with feminine charm. _

_The girl behind the counter, a pretty redhead, kept giving him starry-eyed looks. "Ya lookin' for somethin' for your girl?" she asked, wondering who the lucky girl was._

_Luke looked up and smiled briefly. "Yeah. Havin' a hard time figurin' out which one she'd like in my price range."_

_The girl used her keyset to unlock the jewelry case and pulled out a small one that was priced at about one hundred and fifty dollars. "It's on sale," she told him, letting him look at it. "Ya reckon it'll fit her hand?"_

_Luke looked at it with a confused look and said, "I dunno, I'm not sure what size she wears. Your hands look about the same as hers though."_

_The girl smiled. "I wear either a five or six, depending on the make. Try that one on me to see if it fits my hand or not."_

_Luke didn't realize that Ali had walked in behind him, having dropped in to see if someone could fix her watch that had broken. When she saw her boyfriend trying a ring on some girl, she nearly crossed her eyes in anger._

"_Lucas Duke!" she growled. _

_Luke turned around, surprised to see her. "Ali!" he said, fumbling for something to say. "I—It's not what it looks like!"_

"_Ya better explain to me what you're doin' puttin' a ring on this hussy, then!"_

"_I was just—I mean—I was only—"_

"_Oh forget it!" Ali fumed, storming back outside and down the street. Luke ran his hands through his hair, chasing her outside with the sales girl right behind him. _

"_Ali, will ya let me explain!" Luke pleaded, grabbing her hand. _

"_I don't wanna hear it!"_

_Luke held up the ring in his hand. "I'm tryin' to ask ya to marry me, but I had to try it on this girl to see if it would—"_

_Ali gasped when she realized what was going on and fixated her eyes on the ring. "You—you're askin' me to marry you!"_

_Luke grimaced, realizing he blew his chance at a more romantic proposal. "Yeah."_

_Ali laughed and threw her arms around, excited beyond belief. "Yes, of course I will! And I just _love _that ring!"_

_The happy moment was short-lived by the salesgirl clearing her throat behind Luke, who turned around and gave her a confused look. The girl had her arms crossed. "I'm happy for ya an' all, but ya still gotta pay for that."_


	11. One Last Night, Part Three

**A/N: Okay, here's the last "sappy" chapter, then its gonna be back to the way it was, kinda :) **

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**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Eleven: One Last Night, Part Three**

Bo carried Chelsea through the house, not cutting on any switches so not to wake her up. She had already had a bath earlier, so there was nothing to do but lay her in his big bed and put her teddy bear next to her as he covered her up. He ran a hand gently through her little brown curls as she lay there in peace, completely unaware to what was going on in the cold world around her.

Normally he would have put her in her own bed in her own room, but tonight he didn't want to do that, not when this was the last night he would see her for who knew how long. He curled up next to his daughter and laid his head on the pillow beside hers.

"Chelsea," he whispered so he wouldn't wake her. "I know you might not understand it, but ya have to leave for a few days. I don't want ya to, but it's necessary. We think your mommy was—was taken on purpose an' I have to make sure that whoever it was that took Mommy doesn't come after you too. You'll be okay, Aunt Evie and Aunt Ali'll be with ya."

The little girl stayed deeply asleep, probably dreaming about gummi bears and trips to the general store—she loved running up and down the aisles, playing hide and seek with him and Rachel as they tried to shop for groceries.

A tear slid down Bo's nose and onto the pillow. Rachel. He wished she was here.

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_It was near midnight when the bright light first appeared at the window. Chelsea had rolled around to the opposite end of the bed, leaving Bo alone on his end. He squinted in his sleep when the light became brighter as if getting closer and closer. His eyes fluttered open and he had a surprised look on his face when he realized that something strange was going on._

_He held a hand in front of his eyes to block the light, turned briefly to see where Chelsea was, then returned to his original position. "Hello?" he asked softly, not sure whether to say anything or not. _

"_Hello, Bo," a beautiful voice replied in an equally soft tone, giving Bo a warm feeling while giving him a the chillbumps at the same time. The light dimmed somewhat and a figure appeared before him in a white gown that touched the floor. "You recognize me?"_

_His eyes widened. "Rachel?" he asked in a doubtful tone. "But—it can't be, you're—"_

"_I know, it seems impossible, but I'm here," Rachel's spirit told him. "I've only been given a few minutes before I have to go away. I just had to see you an' Chelsea one last time."_

_Bo blinked back the tears he knew were coming. "Rachel," he sighed, not believing this. "You have no idea how much I miss you."_

"_I miss you too, Bo," she replied softly, holding out a hand for him to hold. Bo held it gently, shocked at how warm and light it felt—like a feather almost. "I want you to know that I'm glad that you're sendin' Chelsea away for a while. As much as I love her, I don't want her up here with me anytime soon. An' I don' t want you to go through anymore pain than you've already gone through."_

_Rachel floated over to where her daughter was sleeping, oblivious to what was going on, and gave her a kiss on the cheek and ran a hand through her hair. Chelsea stirred a little, as if she could actually feel it._

"_Make sure to raise her as a little lady," Rachel smiled playfully at Bo, who was standing up now. "Don't let her run around like a boy, teachin' her to fight an' things like that."_

"_Hey, she's a Duke, it's in her blood to act like that," he remarked good-naturedly. "Rachel . . . would it be possible for me to hold ya one last time?"_

_She floated over to him and wrapped her arms around him gently. She felt so fragile in her spirit form that Bo thought he would break her if he squeezed too hard. Rachel lifted her head and gave him a sweet kiss on the mouth. "I love you, Bo Duke," she whispered, rubbing noses with him._

"_I love you too, Rach," he smiled. He frowned when he realized that she was fading. "What's goin' on?"_

"_My time's up, Bo," she said sadly. "I have to return to heaven now."_

"_But, I don't want you to go. I want you to stay here with me an' Chelsea."_

_She was fading a little faster. "I do too but I can't. We'll meet up again someday. I'll always be watching you from where I'll be. Always remember that. I'll always be keepin' an eye out for you an' Chelsea, no matter where you may be." _

_She was close to vanishing now. "I love you . . ."_

"_I love you, too . . ." _

Bo started awake. He looked around the room, looking for Rachel but realized she was gone. Chelsea had nuzzled her way into his arms while she was sleeping. Bo ran a hand through his blond hair, trying to figure out if what just took place was a dream or reality.

(Sorry so short!)


	12. Horrendously Scuffed

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Twelve: Horrendously Scuffed**

**Balladeer: That morning, Eve made arrangements for the three of them to stay with their Aunt Liza that lived over near Atlanta. Aunt Liza was the sister of Eve an' Ali's mother and also the sister of Cooter's father, an' she was more than happy to take them in after hearin' about what terrible things had been goin' on in Hazzard. None of the girls wanted to leave; Ali was latched onto Luke bawlin' her eyes out, Eve seemed quite content in spending the rest of her life in Rosco's hug, and Chelsea started screamin' once Bo placed her in the backseat of Eve's car in her little carseat. It was a rough mornin' for everyone, but they got the job done. With heavy hearts all around, the boys said good-bye to their girls as they drove off towards Aunt Liza's house.**

The Boar's Nest seemed dismal and dreary that night as the three men sat around a circular table with their mugs and shotglasses of their preferred drinks. Bo finished off his beer, crossed his arms as he leaned back and said, "Well, now what, Luke?"

Luke was running his finger along the rim of his own mug. "We wait an' keep an' eye out for each other. If we do that, surely we'll catch whoever's doin' this to us an' we'll put an' end to his reign of terror once an' for all."

"So in other words, we're gonna sit like ducks an' stare at each other until one of us gets hurt, then go after the guy," Bo summarized in his own words. He grabbed the whiskey bottle that was also on the table and poured himself a shot.

Rosco, who normally drank buttermilk, said, "Hey, pour me some of that, would ya?"

Bo and Luke exchanged glances. "Ya sure, Rosco?" Luke asked. "It's a lot stronger than that buttermilk."

"I know that, that's why I'm askin' for some," Rosco shot back as Bo poured him a little in his empty glass. Much to the boys' surprise, he chugged down the contents as if he were used to the alcohol.

"I'm goin' to drive around for a bit," he announced, placing his cowboy hat on his head.

"Wait, you sure that's a good idea?" Luke asked, grabbing the sheriff's arm. "I don't think it'd be a good idea to be alone, not with some psycho runnin' around out there."

Rosco gave him a "look", which said "I _need _to be alone." Luke seemed to get the drift and released his hold on his arm, letting Rosco get up and go out the door.

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Rosco regretted having had that one shot of whiskey, which must've been some pretty hard stuff. He wasn't used to drinking any kind of alcohol and it was showing by the way he would slightly run off the road a little bit as he drove along the back roads of Hazzard. His own car was still messed up from the earlier shooting, so he was using Enos's car for now. The moon was covered by clouds so the only light source he had to go by was his headlights, which would soon prove to be a disadvantage.

Rosco hadn't seen anybody behind him, since there were no headlights shining anywhere near him, so when he felt his car getting slammed from behind it came to him as quite a shock.

"Ijit!" he muttered, looking in his rear-view mirror to see who the perpetrator was for scuffing his vehicle. Unfortunately, the person behind him had their headlights turned off so he couldn't see a derned thing. "Blasted kids," he continued to grumble but was interrupted by getting slammed yet _again_.

Aggravated now, Rosco rolled his windows down and stuck his head out. "You kids stop scuffin' my vehicle!" he hollered into the wind. "That's county property, an' I'll charge you with assaultin' an officer, an'—"

Whoever was in the car didn't seem to care. This time they pulled up to the side of him and knocked into him sideways, sending him flipping down the hill that he had been beside the whole time. The car went bouncing along violently, parts getting knocked asunder as it did so.

**Balladeer: They must've been mad that he yelled at 'em.**

It finally came to a stop upside-down, Rosco having to scramble to unhook his seat-belt and crawl out the window onto the ground. "Oooh, what a horrendous crash!" he growled.

He pulled his hat off his head, which had wound up covering his eyes during the crash and tossed it to the ground in an angry manner. He couldn't see anything in the pitch dark and he couldn't help but feel a little scared bein' out here by himself—he wished he'd listened to Luke and stayed put in the Boar's Nest.

He took out his gun with his right hand and cocked it, ready to use it if necessary. Almost as soon as he did so, he felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder and the sound of gunshot in the distance. He groaned as he used his left hand to grab his injured shoulder as he realized that someone was indeed shooting at him.

He scrambled for safety behind the wrecked car, his mind racing on what to do. He couldn't see, he'd dropped his gun when he got shot, and now he was being closed in on by somebody who was definitely _not _some joyriding local kids. Oh dear, he wished he'd paid more attention in that refresher course he'd had to take a few years back!

He heard another shot and the sound of glass breaking. He reasoned that they must have night-vision goggles in order to have gotten his shoulder on the first try and now getting the car with good aim. That fact scared the mess out of him. How was he supposed to compete with that?

He didn't have time to think about any escape plans. Someone had snuck up behind him and whacked him in the back of his head, causing him to lose consciousness . . .

**Balladeer: Huh, I wonder why they didn't kill 'im? Not sayin' I want Rosco gone, but I'm just curious . . . **

**--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

Flash wasn't used to all this walking on her own. She'd been on the move for days trying to find a way home but to no use. Her arthritic joints were killing her; she was more accustomed to someone carrying her around or riding in the passenger seat of a car. Her stomach growled viciously—she wasn't a hunting dog and didn't know the procedure of catching her own food out in the wilderness. She had chosen to stay away from the roads in fear of getting hit by a car. Besides, the woods offered some protection from the elements, such as the wind and the rain.

At last, the sign of light came up in the distance. She had been in darkness most of the night, thanks to the clouds, but a bright lamppost up ahead brought some home. Best of all, she smelled gasoline and oil—that meant vehicles, which meant people were nearby. Feeling a little better, and hoping either one of her two owners were around to feed her and take her home, Flash made her way onto cemented exit that was connected to the highway. She could see the outlines of giant eighteen-wheeler trucks, which scared her a little. Her nose eventually led her to a garbage can, which had the scraps from people's lunches inside.

Starving beyond reason, the hound lifted herself up onto her haunches as best she could and knocked the bin over, making a loud clanging sound and spilling out all of that day's discarded food items. She found bits and pieces of assorted sandwich crusts, apple chunks, some left-over beef jerky all of which she gobbled up upon recognition.

A flashlight suddenly beamed its way on her and she froze solid as she stared into the light. Frightened she sniffed the air and wagged her tail once she realized who it was.

"Flash?" she heard a voice ask in a tired manner and she scampered over to the familiar person.


	13. The Face of Death

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Thirteen: The Face of Death**

Rosco wasn't answering his phone—at home _or _at the office. Nor was he responding on the CB. Luke and Bo were outside by the General Lee, which had been staying at Uncle Jesse's barn the whole time. Luke tried again to call the sheriff but didn't receive any answer.

"Ya don't reckon he went off an' got hurt, do ya?" Bo asked as Luke flung the radio handle back into the car.

"He only had _one _shot, Bo," Luke replied. "He couldn't have been drunk enough to run into a tree an' knock himself out all night long."

Bo shrugged. "Ya never can tell with ol' Rosco."

Luke shook his head. "Somethin' just ain't right about this. If he were near a phone, he'd answer it for sure in case it was Eve. An' he usually always answers his CB." He remembered when Jesse hadn't responded to his call when he and Rosco were driving around looking for him and Rachel. Talk about deja vu. "Let's just look for him. We'll start at the Boar's Nest and drive from there lookin' around."

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**Balladeer: The boys spend a good half of the day lookin' for Rosco. They had checked everywhere—the roads, the courthouse, all throughout town, his house, _everywhere_. They at last decided to check the roads again when they finally found his tore up patrol car at the bottom of a steep hill—but there wasn't any Rosco to be found.**

"I'm confused," Bo admitted as the two cousins inspected the damaged car. "Did he wander off on his own or what?"

"Rosco's been known to do some dumb stuff, but I don't think he'd try to walk away from accident like _this _without callin' for help—especially in the middle of the night." Luke spied the sheriff's hat and gun on the ground. "I don't think he would've left these behind either," he noted, picking the gun up and tossing it in the car. Even though they were on good terms with the law in Hazzard, that still didn't give them a right to handle a gun and break probation—of which they thankfully only had one year left of. "Looks like the dang car got massacred."

"Or shot at. Why you think his gun's layin' there? He must've had to use it or else he wouldn't have pulled it out."

"I don't see any shells anywhere, but it's possible." Luke cursed under his breath, leaning down to pick up the cowboy hat. "Great. Now we've got an injured deputy an' a missin' sheriff. What else could go wrong?"

"Guess it's just us, now, huh?"

"Looks that way. I don't get it though. If whoever's responsible for what's been going on around here has Rosco, why didn't they just shoot him an' leave him here with the car?"

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Rosco's head was swimmy as he slowly made his way back to consciousness. The sun was beating down on his face so he instinctively lifted his arm to block it. He hissed in pain and grabbed his throbbing shoulder that had been shot last night. He realized he was sitting upright in a chair and he batted his eyes to focus on his surroundings without the sun blinding him. It appeared that he was in a small shed somewhere. Judging from the smell, he was out in Hazzard Swamp—_deep _in the swamp. He felt that his shoes and socks were wet from the water that was covering the floor.

"Hello, Rosco," he heard an all-too familiar voice say from the side.

He darted his eyes to the side, having thought he was alone, and he nearly went into a conniptions fit when he recognized the person beside him. "Oooh, ijit! B-Boss?" he chattered, suddenly realizing that he was freezing, despite the fact he still had his coat on.

The ex-tycoon of Hazzard County laughed and puffed away at his cigar that he had in his mouth. "You recognize me!" he grinned heartily. "Even without the white suit, ya recognize me!" He was, indeed, not dressed in white but rather in some old clothes he probably picked up from some salvation army store. He motioned for someone to come near him.

"Rosco, I do believe you know this gentleman. This here's Felix. He helped me break outta prison an' he's been helpin' me these past few days."

Rosco was still a little fuzzy-headed and had no idea what Boss was babbling about. Boss knew this of course and thought it best to take things in baby steps. "Think about it, dummy. Imagine him with a red tie."

The sheriff tried to picture it and he instantly realized that he was staring at the man that Flash had attacked at the Jesse's funeral. The look on his face told Boss that he had figured it out.

"Yeah, I had Felix here wear some of my cologne so that Flash would think it was me."

Felix rubbed his leg where Flash had bit him. "Still smarts, too."

"Shut up, Felix. Before that, though he performed a little snip-snip on Jesse Duke's brake line so he'd go tumblin' down the hill like Jack an' Jill. Wasn't plannin' on that little Rachel girl goin' along with it, but she was goin' to go anyways in the future so it didn't bother me none."

"_You_ killed Jesse, Rachel, an' Flash?" Rosco managed to ask, shivering from the cold and the pain he felt in his shoulder which was spreading down the rest of his arm.

"Luke's wife was supposed to go," Boss frowned, tapping the ashes from the tip of his cigar. "Dumb-ass here didn't put enough rat poison in her drink. But I suppose it did enough damage to make everybody feel bad enough to die."

"What—what about Enos?"

Boss rolled his eyes at Felix. "That was a mistake, but I suppose since Enos was the one to arrest me, he deserved it. _You _were supposed to get shot, but I think I like this scenario better."

Rosco thought he was going to cry—the man that used to be his best friend was responsible for the pain and suffering that everybody, including himself, was going through. "But, Boss, _why_?"

"Why?" Boss repeated, getting a bit angry. "You have some nerve to ask me that, Rosco P. Coltrane! You ought to know—I'm doin' it for _revenge_! Them disgustin' Dukes had been a pain in my side for years an' then they go an' screw it up big time for me! And _you_, _you _turned your back on me an' joined up with 'em!"

"Boss, you lied to me!" Rosco defended himself, scared to death of how crazy Boss had seemed to have gotten. "You admitted to having pretended to be my friend for years when ya weren't, pulled a gun on my dog, an'—"

"Oh, boo-hoo," Boss mocked him. "Get over it, will ya? I guess you'll have plenty of time to think about what a mistake you made in betrayin' me."

He pulled a syringe out of his coat pocket that was filled with some sort of substance. "See this? This syringe is filled with a barbiturate—it induces sleep-like effects, might even make you see things. If given too much, it can kill ya."

Rosco was starting to get a little rattled at Boss's behavior. He would've stood up to try and leave except he was too weak to battle his way to the door. He realized he could hardly feel his legs from the cold.

"An' this cold is already havin' some effects on ya as it is. No sense callin' for help, we're in the middle of the swamp. Nobody's gonna find ya out here, Rosco. Nobody to come save you. Not even that pretty little wife of yours."

Rosco's eyes grew wide when he heard this mad man mention his wife. "How did you know I was—"

"Last year in prison, I heard her name on the news when they were talkin' about those Hammer Head murders. He got the needle by the way. Anyhow, enough jabber."

Before Rosco could even think, Boss had swooped in for the kill and stuck the needle deep into his left shoulder and emptied the syringe into his body. The sheriff groaned with pain and tried to fight the ex-commissioner, only to end up falling out of his chair and landing in the water on his back, trying to figure out how to keep one hand on his fractured shoulder and another hand on the shoulder he just got a needle jabbed in.

Felix himself flinched with pain when Boss had stuck him with a needle. Boss laughed as he watched his brother-in-law try to lift himself off the floor but to no use. He snapped his fingers at Felix, a signal for him to follow him out the door. Rosco still laid on the wet floor when Boss said, "Remember, Rosco. You're in the middle of the swamp. Nobody can save you. Heh heh heh, good-_night_ and _sweet _dreams!" And then he slammed the door to the shed, leaving Rosco alone to die.

**Balladeer: Folks, Hazzard County is _drownin'_ in bad luck . . . **


	14. Piece of the Puzzle

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Fourteen: Piece of the Puzzle**

**Balladeer: Not knowin' who else to go to for help, Bo an' Luke paid a visit to Rosco's sister Lulu, hopin' that maybe she had some idea where he might be. She hadn't been at work lately, not since her late-night visitor she had that other night, so she was cooped up in her house, which is where the boys found her.**

"Miss Lulu, I don't think you understand," Luke told her as the three sat in the Hogg's living room. "Rosco's missin' an' we think that whoever's been causin' the trouble around here has him!"

She looked nervous as she continued with her cross-stitching. "Don't be ridiculous, he's just wandered off. He'll show up shortly."

"But we don't _know _that," Bo said, not understanding why Lulu was acting this way. Normally, she went into hysterics when her baby brother was supposedly in danger.

Lulu accidentally poked herself with her needle, shaking as bad as she was. She flinched and kept on going. Luke noticed that she was being a little peculiar and fidgety, so he asked, "You feelin' all right, Miss Lulu?"

"Who me?" she chuckled nervously. "Of course I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be? Everything's fine an' dandy here." Her face fell and she started to cry. The boys didn't know what in the world to think of it. "Oh, I can't lie to you boys! I wish I'd said somethin' to begin with an' maybe my baby brother would still be here!"

"Calm down, Miss Lulu, take it easy," Luke said gently. "What is it ya need to tell us?"

"It's Jefferson!" she cried. "Jefferson came here the other night, mumblin' somethin' about how he wouldn't hurt me 'cause I didn't do anything to hurt him, an' I asked him about the 'accidents' that had been goin' on but he didn't answer me! He broke out of prison an' I think he's responsible for the murders—I'm so sorry!"

Luke felt rather irate that she hadn't indeed mentioned this before but he didn't feel like yelling at the poor woman, not in the state she was in.

"Of course, why didn't we think of it?" Bo asked his cousin, himself trying to hide his anger at this hidden information. "Boss is gettin' revenge for goin' prison!"

"Do ya have any idea where he might be hidin' out?" Luke asked Lulu, who was still sobbing. "Miss Lulu, I know you're upset but this is important! Rosco could be near death out wherever he is, if he's not already an' Boss might be comin' after one of us next!"

"You don't understand!" Lulu exclaimed. "I can't do that to Jefferson! He's still my husband, I can't let—"

"Rosco's your _brother_," Bo pressed. "Miss Lulu, our uncle, my wife, an' Luke's baby are dead because of your husband, an' I'd rightly appreciate it if you'd cooperate a little."

"I don't know where he is! He didn't tell me!" she insisted. "I don't know what else to tell you!"

"Come on, Bo, think!" Luke instructed. "Where could Boss be hidin' out in Hazzard where he wouldn't come into contact with nobody?"

Bo snapped his fingers. "Hazzard Swamp!"

**Balladeer: At last we're gettin' somewhere. The boys packed up the General with their bows an' arrows, heading out to Hazzard Swamp. Now the swamp is a purdy big place, easy to get lost out there. Neither boy knew exactly where to start lookin' for Boss (or Rosco for that matter) so they decided to split up and go their separate ways.**

**Meanwhile, over at Aunt Liza's house, the girls were feelin' withdrawal symptoms an' homesickness. Ali had been curled up in the room given to her and Eve the entire time, having felt sick and depressed from all that had happened. Chelsea would whine about her parents not bein' around, an' Eve would pace the floor constantly worryin' about her husband.**

Aunt Liza was trying her best to feed the troublesome baby, who was intent on not eating anything by this stranger. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, "Moh-mee! Moh-mee!" Ali was still in bed and Eve was in the next room trying to watch Wheel of Fortune to get her mind off of the dangers that were back home. But it didn't work, she hadn't talked to Rosco all day an' she was goin' to go stark-crazy if she didn't hear his voice soon.

She got up off the couch and headed for the phone, getting the operator to connect her to her home, although she was sure that he wouldn't be there. After more than enough rings flew by, she tried the courthouse. Surely he'd be _there_. But he wasn't. Getting a few butterflies in her stomach, she practically called up every business in Hazzard including the Boar's Nest if anyone knew where Rosco was. Nobody knew.

She hung up the phone, her heart ramming in her chest. It was starting to rain, thunder was heard in the distance, coming from the direction of Hazzard County. Rosco hated storms—he wouldn't be out driving around if it were going to be raining soon if it hadn't already. Something was wrong—very wrong.

"_But the minute I hear you're in trouble, I'm comin' straight back here an' gettin' you out of it,_"she had told him_. "That's a promise_."

She hadn't heard that he was in trouble, not yet anyway, but her woman's intuition told her that something was dreadfully wrong. Not able to stand around any longer, she grabbed her purse and keys and marched to the front door. Aunt Liza noticed that she was leaving and shouted from the kitchen,

"Evie, it's gonna rain soon. Where ya goin'?"

"Home," she replied simply as she opened the door. "Somethin's wrong."

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Luke had his bow and arrow out in front of him, the bowstring tensed and ready to shoot at the first sign of danger. A crack of thunder was heard overhead and the trees swayed with the wind as it picked up some speed. The cold waters of the swamp came up to his knees, making it somewhat hard to walk.

He didn't know how far away Bo was, but they had been separated for more than twenty minutes. When he heard the movement of water behind him however, he _knew _that it couldn't have been his cousin. Luke turned around to face nothing but an endless maze of trees, logs, dangling moss, and swirling water.

Starting to get the shivers out here, Luke turned back to look forward and kept on moving. All of a sudden he felt a terrible pain in his lower left leg and the sound of gunshot. He fell face-forward into the murky water, losing his bow and arrow in the process. He was completely submerged for a while until he jerked his head back up for air. Then he felt somebody whack the back of his head and all went dark . . .

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Bo heard the shot from where he was. It had come from the direction that Luke had gone in. Panicked, Bo raced as fast as he could, shouting his cousin's name as he did so. About ten minutes later, he eventually came across a bow and arrow floating in the water—Luke's. Bo bent down to pick them up and tears ran down his face. He glanced around and shouted Luke's name again but he didn't get a response.

He heard someone behind him and he jerked around, his bow and arrow in position and fired, his projectile piercing that "someone's" chest. His eyes widened as he saw who he had shot.

"Boss?" he asked, as the elder man fell backwards into the water from the shock of being shot, his handgun falling down beneath the surface. Bo's eyes flashed with anger as he grabbed Boss by the collar. "Boss Hogg, what have you done with Luke an' Rosco? Answer me now or I'll shoot you again!"

Boss was gasping for breath, the arrow having pierced his left lung. He still managed a small smile and chuckle lightly. "Bo Duke—you're aim's still dead-on."

"I'm not in the mood for games, Boss," Bo growled, tightening his grip on Boss's collar. "You killed my Uncle Jesse, my wife—you ain't gonna get away with killin' my cousin too."

Boss simply laughed the best he could. "You'll never find him . . . not in this swamp . . . it plays tricks on your mind, boy . . . get confused real easy."

"Dang it, you tell me where he is!"

Boss shuddered and gasped his last breath before falling silent forever, lying motionless in the swamp with Bo still hanging onto him. Not knowing what to do, Bo started crying and punching the dead man in the face before he managed to control himself. Rising from the water, his jeans now soaked, he called out Luke's name one last time.


	15. Found

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Fifteen: Found **

It was pouring down rain when Luke awoke about an hour later and realized that someone was dragging him by the shoulders through the swamp. Whoever it was, he was having a hard time doing so judging from the wheezing and coughing he was doing. Luke decided to pretend to still be knocked out just to see where he was being taken. He at last felt himself being propped against a wooden wall, his head hitting it slightly. He heard the "someone" walk away a few feet and open up a door. Luke cracked his eyes open and slowly reached to unsheath the knife he had connected to his belt.

When the stranger appeared again, Luke made a swift thrust into the man's stomach, who groaned and gagged from the shock of it. Luke looked deep into his eyes and recognized him almost instantly—the red-tied man from Jesse's funeral. The Duke boy glared at him and muttered,

"Who are you? Where's Boss? Answer me!"

The man fell back into the water, his body sliding off of the knife. Luke caught him and dragged him up against the wall where they could face each other. "Start talkin'," Luke growled.

"My-my name's F-F-Felix," the man stuttered, blood pouring out of his open wound. "Y-Your c-c-cousin k-killed Boss. I dragged you here m-myself."

Luke released his grip on Felix, letting the man crumple down and be swallowed by the swamp where he breathed his last. He cleaned his knife and sheathed it again. He then grabbed his injured leg, still burning from where it had been shot. He knew that if he didn't protect the wound from the unsanitary swamp waters, it could get a major infection. Best he could he ripped his shirt into pieces and wrapped the area as well as he knew how. Hopefully it would do until he got to a hospital.

He knew he couldn't travel in this weather, so he decided to stay take refuge in the shed that Felix had taken him to for a little while. He walked inside and closed the door, turned around and faced an unexpected sight.

"Rosco?" he asked as he saw the sheriff half-way in the water and half-way in a chair as if he had tried to drag himself on it. Luke limped his way towards him and tried to help him up, which was difficult since he was dealing with almost dead-weight. He managed to get him sitting upright in the chair.

"Rosco?" he asked again, feeling his neck for a pulse. It was barely there but there all the same. He was still alive. He started patting his face to try and bring him to consciousness. "Rosco, wake up, it's Luke."

Rosco's breathing became a little more deep and his eyes fluttered open slowly. He suddenly tensed up and acted scared to death, as if Luke were going to hurt him. "Stay away from me," he threatened, his eyes squinted shut now. "Stay away from me."

"Rosco! This is Luke, I ain't gonna hurt ya!" The Duke boy grabbed his shoulders to shake some sense into the man but Rosco tensed up in even more pain when Luke accidentally grabbed where he had been shot. Luke looked at his hand and noticed blood. "Good God, Rosco, you're hurt!"

"Luke?" the sheriff asked, somewhat snapping out of his delirium. "Luke?"

"That's what I've been tryin' to tell ya!" He then attempted at trying to lift the older man up to his feet. "Come on, we need to get ya to a hospital."

Rosco seemed stubborn however and pushed Luke away with his good arm. "No, Luke, leave me," he said tiredly, his head resting over to the side. "Save yourself."

"I'm not leavin' you behind," Luke insisted. "Stop horsin' around, you need help!"

"It's too late for me," Rosco told him, his voice dropping down to almost a whisper. "Boss . . . he drugged me . . . it's fatal."

"We can get it outta ya," Luke assured him, although he didn't know for sure if they could. He didn't even know what kind of drug he'd been given, or how long it had been in his system.

"No," the sheriff protested. "I can already feel it . . . I'm tired . . . my body's numb . . .I'm dyin', Luke."

"No you're not," Luke growled, although he had a feeling that he was about to lose the man right before his eyes. "Ya _can't _die. You have to see Eve again."

Upon hearing her name Rosco's face crinkled into a sad face and he started to cry. "I love 'er so much, Luke. Tell her that for me. Tell her I love 'er."

"You can tell her yourself when you see her again."

Rosco shook his head, tears slowly making their way down his face. "It's over for me. I won't live another night, I know it. _Please, _Luke, I'm beggin' ya. Tell Evie I love her."

Luke looked into the face of the desperate dying man and he shook his head. There was no use arguing with the sheriff, even when he was facing death. "All right, I'll tell her," he promised, squeezing Rosco's hand.

Rosco smiled faintly, the lights in his eyes starting to grow a bit dim. "Thank you," he whispered, closing his eyes and feeling the sleep-like effects of the drug take effect on him again. "Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"I--I never apologized . . .for . . . all the things I did . . . y'know . . . to your family." His eyes were nearly shut now. "I'm sorry."

Luke forced himself not to cry. Although for a long time he and the sheriff hadn't gotten along, they had turned into almost pretty good friends these past several months after Luke had married Ali and they all started getting together for little family events. The rain started letting up outside. Rosco had fallen back into a deep sleep—probably the last time he would do so. Luke gave him a pat on the shoulder as if to let him he was forgiven.

Luke went back outside where the rain was now just a drizzle. He heaved a sigh and went up to the nearest tree, using his knife to carve a large X on it. Rosco may very well be dead in the next few hours, but Luke wasn't going to let the swamp be his grave. He continued on his way through the swamp, going in the direction that Felix had carried him from, every now and then stopping to carve another X on a tree.

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**The Next Morning—Five o'clock AM**

Eve awoke not knowing where she was. She leaned her head up and tried to remember what had happened to her. Ah, she was driving home when she was hit by some idiot swerving in the other lane while it was raining. She barely remembered hitting the tree or hitting her head against the steering wheel. She felt a sharp pain on the front of her head where she had hit it. She felt the area with her hand and realized she had been bandaged.

She glanced around and realized that she was in a strange place—like a bedroom, only it was the size of a closet, if not smaller. She glanced to her right and saw a . . . a steering wheel? She was in a bedroom in a vehicle?

_Eighteen-wheeler_, she thought as she tried to sit up from her stretched out position on the bed. She was on an eighteen-wheeler. Someone must have found her and picked her up. But who?

She heard the door to the truck open and she tensed up, not knowing who in the world it could possibly be. She heard someone come near her and say, "No, no, no, you lay back down, Evie, don't wanna hurt yourself anymore than ya have."

Eve blinked at the familiar voice and she glanced over to see----"Cooter?" she smiled as she saw the face of her favorite cousin come into view.

**Balladeer: I bet y'all forgot about him, huh?**

"Hey, girl," he smiled, giving her a small hug as he kneeled down beside her. "Long time, no see. I've been driving this rig since I last seen ya. Saw where ya wrecked and thought it looked familiar, so I stopped and saw ya in there an' well, welcome aboard!"

"Where are we?"

"At a truckstop. We spent the night here." He checked her bandages for her to see how they were doing. "I tried to fix ya up best I could, but I ain't exactly a nurse."

Eve heard the sound of a dog howling from behind Cooter, who smiled and said, "Oh yeah, guess who I picked up on the side of the road diggin' in the garbage near Capitol City?"

He turned around and picked up something heavy to bring forward and sit near Eve's face. A Basset Hound with a furiously wagging tail immediately started licking her face.

"Flash?" Eve said with a surprised tone in her voice, wrapping her hands around the dog's head and rubbing it. She brought her close for a hug. "Oh, Flash, thank God! Your daddy'll be so happy to see you!"

"Sorry to break up the reunion, but do ya mind tellin' me what y'alls dog was doin' way out there without her tags on?" Cooter asked. "I almost didn't recognize her."

Eve was still massaging Flash's ears, a frown formed on her face. "Oh, Cooter, everything's been goin' so wrong lately. You have to get me home right away."

Cooter hadn't heard anything about any of the deaths, so he looked a little confused. "Why, what's goin' on?"

**Balladeer: While Eve told Cooter 'bout what all had happened the past week, Luke managed to find his way out of the swamp an' get picked up by a good Samaritan, who drove him to the nearest hospital. Some calls were made an' Bo rushed fast as he could to see Luke.**

"Boy, Luke, I thought you were a goner!" Bo exclaimed as he gave his cousin a hug from the hospital bed he was lying in. He was hooked up to a few machines, which made him a little uncomfortable, but the doctors had told him that he would be all right.

"I did too, cousin," Luke had to admit.

"You won't believe it, Luke, I killed Boss," Bo told him. "He tried to sneak up behind me an' I got him with my arrow. I tried to get him to tell me where you were but he died laughin' in my face. I had to drag him outta the swamp an' get a whole mess of people out there to check into it."

"Boss's assistant had me. Knocked me out," Luke explained. "He dragged me to a shed but I woke up and stabbed him before he could do anything to me. He's still out there." He heaved a sigh. "I found Rosco."

Bo's face lightened up. "Ya did? That's great, where is he?"

Luke had a somber look on his face. "Right now? Probably dead."

Bo's smile faded. "I don't understand."

"Boss injected him full of some kinda drug. He was a wreck, Bo, we both knew he wasn't gonna make it much longer. Last thing he said to me was to tell Eve that he loved her."

Bo sat down in a chair. "Oh man. Eve's gonna kill over herself if she finds out about this. Luke, are ya sure he's—"

"There's no way he could've lasted the night, not in the condition he was already in. He'd been shot in the shoulder beforehand, and he'd been out there freezing for hours by the time I found him. I marked off a trail as I left the swamp, though, so we could go back and get his body. The man can at least have a proper burial." He shook his head, decided to change the subject. "How's Daisy an' Enos?"

Bo cleared his head to try and think about the new subject. "Uh, Enos is still in intensive care—the doctors said he should pull through. An' like ya said, Daisy ain't left his side none."

Luke nodded. "At least someone's gonna live through all this."

Bo placed his hand over his cousin's. "Hey, you lived didn't ya?"


	16. Love Survives

**Deliver Us From Evil**

**Chapter Sixteen: Love Survives**

Cooter had never been so upset in his life. He drove almost like a madman. "Jesse an' Rachel?" he couldn't help but repeat, wiping his chin with his hand as if he couldn't believe it. "Ali losin' a baby, Jesus, I missed everything."

Eve was sitting in the passenger seat with Flash curled up in her lap. "The boys made us leave town," she continued with her story. She shook her head. "I just know that somethin's wrong. I can feel it."

Cooter grabbed his CB mike and called out, "Breaker one, breaker one, this here's Sheep Dog callin' for Lost Sheep, come back." Silence. "Lost Sheep, ya there? Bo? Luke?"

Eve started to cry. "I'm tellin' ya, they're all in trouble somewhere. Ali's so depressed over the baby, she can't lose Luke now. An' Chelsea can't be losin' the only parent she has left. An' if anything's happened to—" She couldn't bring herself to say her husband's name, not wanting to think about the possibility that he could be hurt somewhere. Flash whined and nuzzled closer.

Cooter reached a hand out to put on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Evie. We'll check the hospitals to see if any of 'em got checked in, how 'bout that?"

"So it was Boss Hogg the whole time?" Eve asked as she conversed with the Duke boys, Luke in the bed and Bo in a chair. "Unbelievable."

"I know it," Luke groaned as he felt a pain surge through his injured leg.

"Ya look purdy knocked around there, buddyroe," Cooter kidded lightly.

Luke grinned. "You ain't exactly nice to look at either," he joked, in reality actually very glad to see his good friend again.

Eve rolled her eyes. "All right, so Boss is dead? Okay, then there's no problem. Just tell me where Rosco is an' then I'll call up to Aunt Liza to tell her that everything's okay."

Bo and Luke exchanged glances, not sure what to tell her. Eve noticed and she felt the biggest butterfly-feeling emerge in her stomach. "Guys? What's wrong?"

Luke cleared his throat. "Um . . . Eve . . about Rosco . . . he—"

"Oh my God," she interrupted, all the color draining from her face. "He's dead, isn't he?"

Luke didn't have much heart to tell her, but he had no choice. "He told me to tell ya that he loves you."

Eve stood there with a blank face, staring into nothing as she let the reality seep in. Bo had his head ducked down, knowing exactly how she felt. Cooter gave her a sympathetic look and stuck his hands in his pockets.

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_A Year and Two Months Earlier—Late November 1987_

_A slight drizzle had interrupted the picnic that had been planned for that afternoon. Eve had Rosco's hat on her head to keep from getting her hair wet and they had made refuge under an old barn near their picnic area. They hadn't even thought about running back to the car, but this seemed a little more fun, what with the rain now beating down harder against the tin roof._

_Rosco looked a little sheepish. "Sorry Mother Nature decided to screw up your birthday." He tensed up when he heard some thunder in the distance._

"_She didn't screw anything up," Eve insisted, using her hand to try and fix his wind-blown and dampened hair to the way it was supposed to be. "If she hadn't barged in, I wouldn't have got to see how cute ya are when you're all wet like this."_

_He gave her one of his trademark dopey grins that accompanied squinted eyes that were now focused on the ground, embarrassed at the compliment. Her eyes twinkled; he was so cute when he did that._

"_Brr, it's cold," she said, suddenly getting up next to him and slipping her arms under his uniform jacket so she could get warm, her hands rubbing his back. She felt his heart skip a beat before it started pumping about ten times faster than normal as he wrapped his arms around her. Any minute now his breathing would turn shallow and quick—he always did that when she pulled a fast one on him like this. _

_Not this time apparently. He did the complete opposite—deep and slow, as he pushed his head up against hers, using one hand to run up and down her back and the other one to run through her hair. Now it was _her _turn to have a fast heartbeat. Much to her surprise, he lifted her head up and placed a heartfelt kiss on her mouth—usually _she _was the one to do stuff like that, since he was always too shy to act first. She reached up to grab his lapels as an incentive for him to deepen the kiss, which he complied with willingly._

_Rosco pulled his head back a little after a while, noting the enraptured look she had on her face. "Happy birthday," he smiled, talking in a whisper. He planted another kiss on her lips. "I got ya somethin' . . ."_

_She blinked a few times, not able to get over the fact that he had for once made the first move. "My, you're full of surprises today," she kidded with him as he pried her off a few inches from him._

"_Ya gotta close your eyes first," he beamed, putting her hands over her eyes for her. Eve chuckled a little, not having any clue what he had up his sleeve. Heck, after that little maneuver he pulled on her, there was no telling._

"_Okay, kheekhee, you can open 'em."_

_She slid her hands down from over her eyes. "Rosco Coltrane, you're 'bout the craziest—" She stopped in mid-sentence when her eyes fell to where he was holding a gorgeous diamond ring between two fingers. Her hand went to her mouth in shock, tears starting to form in her eyes._

_Rosco was trying to have a serious look, but when he saw the look on her face, he felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Evelyn Rose, will you marry me?"_

_She laughed and cried at the same time, not sure how to react. Tears were pouring from her eyes. "Yes," she finally managed to say. "Yes, I'll marry you."_

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Eve finally blinked, tears rolling down her face.

"No, he can't be," she muttered, her voice quivering. "Did you actually watch him—pass?"

"No, but there wasn't anyway he could've made it another night out in that swamp," Luke told her heavy-heartedly. "He was drugged an' he was already feelin' the effects when I found him."

"But you don't know for sure that's he's dead," Eve argued stubbornly. "He might still be alive out there—oh God, still out there . . .where is he?"

Luke sighed heavily. "I don't it be a good idea for you to—"

"Dammit, Luke, he's my husband an' I wanna see him!" she exclaimed a little too loudly, but she didn't care. "I _promised _him," she said in a softer voice, more tears falling. "I promised him before I left that if he were in trouble I'd come back to get him out of it. An' I intend on makin' good on that promise, so ya better just tell me where he is."

Luke glanced over at Cooter, who nodded his head sagely as if to tell him that it would be better to just give her the directions. There was no use in arguing with Eve.

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Luke had said that he marked the trail with X's on trees and gave Eve correct place to start looking so she would be able to find the last tree that he marked easier. Under Cooter's advice, she got a hold of a small motorboat that had been stored behind the garage. She wanted to do this on her own, but Cooter insisted he come along . . . just in case she needed help. Besides, she didn't know how to work a motorboat.

Cooter had the engine on low, not wanting to get the blades tangled up in anything that might be hidden beneath the waters. Eve was near the front with Flash, who was sniffing at the air for any hint of her owner. They had found where Luke had marked trees with an X, like he had said. Everytime Eve saw one, she'd have a feeling of hope followed by a feeling of dread—she was getting closer to her husband, but at the same time she was getting closer to the awful truth that he was more than likely not even alive.

After nearly thirty minutes, Flash suddenly perked her ears up and gave a short howl before bounding out of the boat and paddling her way through the water. At first Eve didn't know what had come over the dog but it came upon her shortly—she must know where Rosco was. Flash had already disappeared through past some low branches from the surrounding trees. Eve didn't want to lose her and without even thinking, jumped out of the boat.

"Evie!" Cooter exclaimed, not expecting what she just did.

The cold water hit her almost to her waist, almost knocking the breath out of her. She wished she wasn't so short, maybe it would only hit her legs then. "Stay here," she told her cousin as she fought her way through the water to follow the dog. "Flash!" she called, moving some branches out of her way.

The water eventually got a little more shallow as she moved along. She caught sight of Flash up ahead on a small shallow island, shaking excess water off her fur and then scratching furiously at a door to a shed. Her heart leaping to her throat, Eve tried to make herself move faster and at last the water level started going down and she heaved herself onto shore, which still had about three inches of water covering it, and made her way to Flash, not caring how bad she looked at the moment.

Scared to death, she pried the door open and forced herself to look inside. Flash had already slipped past her and she watched the dog go into the back of the shed where she saw Rosco seated in a chair, his head leaned forward and his eyes closed as if he were asleep. Eve let out a small cry, bit her lip to keep herself from losing all control and pushed her way to him.

She wrapped her arms around his cold body, holding him tightly close to her as she wept. She ran a hand through his hair, leaned back and kissed him good and hard on the mouth before attaching herself to him again. Flash was whining, trying to crawl up into her owner's lap and not understanding what was so wrong to make the missus cry so.

"Oh, my poor darling," she sputtered, not able to contain her grief. "I'm so sorry . . . I never should've left you . . ."

She sat sideways in his lap to keep herself from collapsing onto the soaked floor of the shed, continuing to cry. She thought she was going to pass out from sobbing, when suddenly she felt someone wrap an arm around her. Her breath hitched in her throat and her brain seemed to stopped functioning for a minute.

"Eve?" she heard Rosco faintly whisper.

She immediately pulled back, frightened beyond belief and confused as hell. She saw her husband's eyes move a little from under his eyelids, a sign that he was somewhat conscious. "Eve?" he whispered yet again.

Flash howled loudly and Eve cried some more, holding Rosco's head in her hands and doing her best not to kiss him senseless. "Yes, baby, it's me," she told him, holding him in her arms to try and keep him warm. "It's gonna be all right, darlin', I'm here now." Oh God it felt so good to feel his heart starting to beat somewhat harder, his breathing getting deeper, hearing his voice, knowing he was _alive_.

Flash crawled her way into the middle of the reunion, licking Rosco's face until he noticed her presence. "Flash?" he asked in a slightly confused manner.

"Yes, honey, Flash is here, she's not dead." She kissed him on the mouth. "Keep talkin', _God_ I love you!"

Even though he felt extremely sick and dizzy, he managed to smile somewhat. "Love you, too." Luke was right. He _did _get to tell her that for himself after all.

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_**Epilogue**_

**Balladeer: Bo Duke raised Chelsea the best he knew how, makin' sure to give her plenty of love and attention. He promised himself that when she was older, he'd make sure to tell her 'bout her mother, Rachel. He would never remarry nor have any other children.**

**Ali an' Luke did in fact get pregnant again, this time without any problems. They now have a little boy whom they named Jesse, an' they're expectin' another one in a few months. Both Bo an' Luke still work together at the garage.**

**Rosco retired his position as sheriff, this time gettin' the pension that he hadn't gotten so many years ago. He an' Eve moved out to Tennessee where they live in a cabin on a ranch where they raise horses. Although they couldn't have children of their own, they adopted Flash's twin pups when she died after their birth. They're about three weeks old now, havin' to be bottlefed.**

**Daisy an' Enos became the parents of a healthy baby girl—they asked permission from Bo if it would be all right to name her Rachel, which he was fine with. Little Rachel should be about three months old right now. An' with Rosco havin' retired, Enos ran for sheriff an' not to anyone's surprised, he won.**

**It's now the summer of 1990—a year an' five months after the events involvin' Boss Hogg. I recently ran into Cooter Davenport at a diner that he was stopped at while makin' a shippin' delivery all the way over to California. He told me a big Fourth of July celebration was going to be goin' on in town, said there was goin' to be a talent show followed by fireworks. As far as he knew, everybody should be there includin' him. I'm lookin' forward to seein' it, are you?**

The Fourth of July talent show opened up without a hitch, with Lulu Hogg (still County Commissioner) providing a brief introduction to the night's events. The first act went to Bo, Daisy and Enos. Bo was on guitar singing the song "Marie LaVeaux" while on the stage Daisy was dressed up like the witch "Marie" and Enos was playing Handsome Jack, the con that tricked her. Everyone thought Daisy did an excellent job, she even scared Enos!

Next up came Rosco, who was reliving his "The Great Coltrano" magic act. He didn't have his disappearing trick this time, and the job of the "lovely assistant" went to his wife, Eve. He'd had plenty of practice since his last attempt at magic and did a pretty good job at guessing what card you'd pulled out of the deck, pulling plush rabbits out of hats, and even got Luke on stage so he could saw him in half!

After Luke got put back together again, he and Ali belted out the Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn song "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man", except they changed the words to "Little City Woman, Hazzard County Man", and when the words "Mississippi River" came up, they'd change it to "Hazzard Swamp".

Although Eve worried about safety and health precautions, Cooter showed everyone a little "trick" he'd learned while on the road. He had delivered some packages to a small carnival a few months back and he learned the art of fire-breathing and juggling while he stayed there. He would juggle ordinary items and then using some kind of special technique that nobody knew, he breathed fire on them to set them in flames and continue juggling them without getting hurt.

The very last act went to Chelsea, who was dressed up real pretty in a pink dress (much to her dislike) and Bo coached her to somewhat sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". She barely mumbled the words, so Bo pretty much sang the song for her but it was still cute to watch.

**Balladeer: Uncle Jesse would've loved to have seen this...**

After the talent show ended, everybody went outside to drive off to Hazzard Lake, where they all parked and either sat in the tailgates or the hoods of their cars. Cooter and L.B. had gotten a hold of the fireworks and set them a-blazing on the other side of the lake. L.B. didn't get out of the way in time and got shot in the behind by one, having to jump in the water to put the fire out in his britches.

Luke had one arm wrapped around Ali, who was about four months pregnant, and the other arm wrapped around Lil' Jesse. He eventually got fussy and crawled down to go visit his "Uncle Bo", who allowed him to sit with him and Chelsea while the fireworks continued on.

Daisy had Lil' Rachel wrapped in a blanket, rocking her to sleep while her and Enos watched together. Eve had her head against Rosco's shoulder as he cradled their female puppy, Sasha, in one arm while he fed her a bottle. Eve was holding Sasha's brother, Dash, while he slept away peacefully.

Bo looked around at everybody, happy that they were all so content with each other but felt a little sad that Rachel couldn't be there. He bounced both Chelsea and Lil' Jesse on his knees, drawing giggles from both of them. Then he looked up at the smoke that had formed as a result of the fireworks. He could've swore he saw Rachel's face in the swirling mist, smiling at him.

And that's when he knew that everything was going to be all right from now on.

**The End**

**Many thank you's to everyone that reviewed this story, especially those who stayed with me since the very first story of the trilogy. I was actually kinda thinking about a "follow-up" story taking place when Chelsea was about 14-16...just an idea, I may or may not write it. But so far I'm plannin' on it :) But for now as Cooter would say, "Keep 'em between the ditches!".**


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